Weather: Mostly sunny. A chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs in the lower 90s. Northwest winds around 5 mph, becoming northeast in the afternoon. Chance of rain 30 percent. Heat index values up to 105. Tuesday Night: Mostly clear. A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms in the evening. Lows in the mid 70s. East winds around 5 mph, becoming west after midnight. Chance of rain 20 percent.
Today at the Editor’s Glance:
The Palm Coast City Council meets at 6 p.m. at City Hall. The council will likely approve a near-doubling of needed funds for the next step in the reparation of the splash pad at Holland Park. For agendas, minutes, and audio access to the meetings, go here. For meeting agendas, audio and video, go here.
The Flagler County School Board meets for the first time since the Aug. 23 primary, when two of its members–Jill Woolbright and Janet McDonald–were defeated (McDonald was running for a county commission seat), though they serve on the board until the first week of November. The board is expected to approvingly discuss a new memorandum of understanding with its service employees’ union raising the district minimum wage to $15, and bus driver’s starting pay to $17.50, with all other non-instructional staff getting a 20-cent an hour raise starting Oct. 1. The board meets at 3 p.m. in workshop to go over the items on its upcoming school board meeting two weeks hence. The board meets in the training room on the third floor of the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. Board meeting documents are available here.
The Flagler County School Board meets at 5:15 p.m. to adopt its tax rates for the coming year. Local school boards have no authority over those tax rates, which are set by the Legislature. The meeting is a required formality. See: “Flagler Schools’ Budget Is Millions Short from 10 Years Ago as District Is Forced to Shift Tax Dollars to Private Schools.”
The Hammock Community Association meets at 6 p.m. at the Hammock Community Center, 79 MalaCompra Road to discuss “Steps we can take to prevent overdevelopment of the Hammock.”
Lech Walesa, the 78-year-old former president of Poland, 1983 Nobel laureate and founder of Solidarity, the trade union that cracked the iron curtain in 1980, will speak at Florida International University at 7 p.m., FIU MARC Pavilion, 11200 S.W. Eighth St., Miami. You can register for the webinar, remotely, here. The event is sponsored by the Steven J Green School of International & Public Affairs. Not that you’ll see it advertised on FIU’s Facebook page amid the din of football postings.
Sales tax suspension on tools and home-improvement items: The so-called “tool time tax holiday” allowing people to avoid paying sales taxes on purchases of tools and home-improvement items is in effect from Saturday, September 3 through midnight Friday, Sept. 9.
Keep in Mind: The Flagler Youth Orchestra Strings Program has open enrollment for Flagler County’s public, private, charter and home-schooled students, 8 years old and older, who may sign up to play violin, viola, cello, or double bass. Beginner, intermediate and advanced musicians are welcome. Tuition is free. Limited instrument scholarships are available. Enroll here. For more information about the program, call (386)503-3808 or email [email protected].
In medias res: The Observer’s Jonathan Simmons has a comprehensive take on the Flagler school district’s readying to adapt its policies in accordance with the DeSantis regime’s handmaid’s tales. He notes: “The following are among the Flagler Schools policies being updated to accord with new state laws: Policy 411 (Educational Media Materials Selection); Policy 410 (Instructional Materials Selection); Policy 537 (Parental Access to Information); Policy 530.1 (School Health Services); Policy 643 (Records and Reports). Click the links to view the proposed changes, which are marked in [links].” And: “The Florida Department of Education is reviewing a proposed rule on student bathroom and locker room access that may affect transgender students. Proposed language on the department’s website states that if a school district allows separation of bathrooms or locker rooms according to criteria other than sex at birth, the district’s policy must be posted on the district’s website and must explain: how students are being supervised in locker rooms (i.e., by a coach or aid); which locker rooms are not separated by biological sex at birth; and which bathrooms are not separated by biological sex at birth.”
Now this:
Flagler Beach Webcam:
The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
January 2026
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Friday Blue Forum
‘Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill,’ the Billie Holiday Story, at City Rep Theatre
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Second Saturday Plant Sale at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park
American Association of University Women (AAUW) Meeting
‘Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill,’ the Billie Holiday Story, at City Rep Theatre
For the full calendar, go here.
Ira (Chip) Lupu, an emeritus professor at George Washington University Law School with an expertise in religion, believes that Alito has crudely applied “an entirely appropriate concern about persecution of vulnerable minorities, including religious minorities, around the world” to the way “conservative religious people, mainly Christians, are in conflict over matters like L.G.B.T.Q. rights and the status of women and reproductive freedom in this country.” Christian Americans, Lupu argued, “don’t get persecuted—they get disagreed with.” He continued, “Yes, sometimes they are under certain obligations as citizens. They might face non-discrimination laws. But nobody ever says, for example, that you have to give the sacrament of marriage to same-sex couples. Nobody says you lose your tax exemption if you don’t ordain openly gay priests or rabbis. That would be persecution.”
In Rome, Alito claimed that “you had better behave yourself like a good secular citizen” just to go into public nowadays. Lupu told me, “Nobody says you can’t wear religious garb or a T-shirt with New Testament quotations when you go to the mall. Some people like it and some people don’t, but nobody’s preventing you from doing it.”
Alito has warned that, as Americans become more secular, the U.S. may become less attuned to the constitutional rights of religious citizens. But when he makes this argument a curious elision sometimes occurs, and he seems to be saying that the growing percentage of secular people is in itself a form of religious persecution. In Rome, Alito said, “Think of the increasing number of young Americans whose response, when asked to name their religion, is to say ‘None.’ Think of those who proclaim that religion is bad. What can we say to such people to convince them that religious liberty is worth protecting?” Who is the “we” here? Supreme Court Justices? Conservative Christians? The devout?
–From “Justice Alito’s Crusade Against a Secular America Isn’t Over,” a profile by Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker, August 28, 2022.
Jan says
Although I know it will be expensive, I do hope they fix the splash pad.
Gary says
Again the last mayor screwed us again. Since she changed the parameters of the project she should out of own pocket pay for it. It’s time for the politicians start paying for there pet project foul ups !