Flagler County’s Beach-Saving Plan All But Killed by Opposition to Sales Tax Increase Despite Last-Minute Switch

Flagler County’s long-debated $114 million beach-management plan looked all but dead at the end of a contentious two-hour meeting of the County Commission Monday, with only two commissioners willing to support an increase in the half-cent sales tax to fund the plan. The commission needs four votes to enact the higher tax. 

At the last minute, and after at times angrily denouncing the information the administration has provided her–and not provided her–Commissioner Kim Carney sprang a surprise: she would support the tax. She would do so under protest. But she would support it. 

“They’re going to beat us to a pulp, Pam, until we get this thing funded,” Carney said, speaking to Pam Richardson, her fellow commissioner also opposed to the sales tax increase, as is Commissioner Leann Pennington (who was absent on Monday due to illness). “It’s the wrong decision. It is the wrong decision.” But she would take it. “I am being asked to make a bad decision because I have bad information,” Carney said. 

By then, a defeated Andy Dance, the chair of the commission, had already given direction to Petito to drop the management plan as a comprehensive approach covering all 18 miles of the county’s shoreline, and to revert to addressing only 10 miles of unincorporated beaches. That approach would abandon Flagler Beach and Beverly Beach. It would also spell the end of any future beach renourishments there by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, since Flagler Beach has made clear it cannot afford to pay the local share the corps requires to keep renourishing. 

So Carney’s last-minute switch appeared to potentially give the 18-mile approach a lifeline. But not really. 

Four funerals

First, the commission still needs Richardson’s fourth vote to make it stick. Richardson is giving no indication that she’ll switch. She wants massive cuts to the county budget before doing so–cuts equal to the $12 million a year Petito says is needed to fund the long-term plan. Cuts on that scale will be impossible, Petito said. 

Second, Carney, reached by phone today, was more equivocal about her switch. “I’m willing to play. I’m willing to do what I have to do,” Carney said. “I want a funding plan that doesn’t have a half-cent sales tax. Is that clear enough for you?” But she expects Petito to come back on Monday and present alternatives to the sales tax increase. “We do not have to abandon our beach because we do not have a half-cent sales tax, and that’s the way it is being projected,” Carney said, putting the burden squarely on Petito. “I don’t believe I have to have a Kim Carney plan. It’s her job to do that.” 

Asked directly whether she would still vote for the sales tax without alternatives, Carney said: “I don’t know yet. I’ve got to see what she comes back with.” So the Carney switch may have been less than it appeared. 

Third, the plan depends on Palm Coast and Bunnell’s willingness to give up half the new revenue from the new sales tax so the county can spend it on beach management. The two cities have not yet voted to support the county. They have not even received the joint agreement with the county that spells out each city’s responsibility and the way the money would be divided. (The two agreements are drafted. They call for the cities to give up half the revenue of their share of the new sales tax in the first year, but then continue to contribute that same amount, even as overall revenue grows.) 

Fourth, based on the tenor of Wednesday’s workshop, the commission is hobbling toward a decision with none of the conviction and unity that a sales tax increase requires to win the cities’ confidence. 

But the County Commission is not voting on it Monday, as some commissioners believe it will. Dance at the workshop cautioned his colleagues that the item had to be on the agenda for a vote. The item is not on the published agenda. Some of the information requested–such as the cost of taking a 10-mile approach, instead of an 18-mile approach–will not be ready by then. 

A disheartened public

The commission’s splintered debate left residents attending the meeting dejected and bitterly critical of the board. The public spoke before Carney’s apparent switch. 

“Something has to be done, period,” Greg Davis said. “We are the Hammock Dudes Owners Association. We are approaching $8 million into this thing so far, and we cannot wait any longer. We absolutely cannot wait any longer. I understand that there’s some tough decisions that have to be made,  but that’s what you’re here for. But we can’t wait. We absolutely cannot wait, and we absolutely cannot fund anything else out of our HOA. Just can’t do it.”

“We hired an expert, county tax dollars, I think it was two years ago, to develop the beach management plan,” William Jordan, a Hammock resident, told the commission. “One of the things the expert recommended was that, yes, we have a beach management plan, we implement it, and we share the funding throughout the county. It was supposed to be spread throughout the county. That was basically their recommendation.” Jordan was willing to pay his share, but not “bearing the whole brunt” of the cost. 

Another Hammock resident rejected Richardson characterizing the sales tax increase as a tax, calling it “an investment in property values, it’s an investment in the future of our county, and if we do nothing, look at the alternative.” 

Ron Long, however, a west-side resident, was just as blunt in the other direction: “As someone who lives out in the west, the majority of us don’t care about the beach,” he said. “We don’t care about the beach. I haven’t been to the beach in 15 years,” other than church. He is opposed to paying an additional half-cent sales tax on top of the property taxes he pays. “For me to pay any extra, no. No. I’m not going to. I’m sorry. I will stand here in front of everybody and say, No, I have no interest in the beach. I’m sorry. I will stand here in front of everybody and say, No, I have no interest in the beach. I don’t care to fund it, and it does nothing to my property value.” 

Long put Jim Ulsamer, a Hammock resident, in a bit of a surly mood when Ulsamer followed Long at the lectern: “I’ve blown four hours of my afternoon, so I’m going to have my say,” Ulsamer said. “For the gentleman who doesn’t–I understand, doesn’t want to pay for the beach, doesn’t live near it. Now, the people who live on the beach happen to contribute a monstrous share of the tax base of this county. Estimates are 30 percent. 

“We don’t send any kids to the schools, but we don’t mind paying for all that stuff. So somebody takes the position, ‘just because I don’t benefit directly from that thing. I don’t want to contribute to it,’ that’s really poor. What I see is you’re headed towards the option of doing nothing. That’s, that’s where it seems to be headed, because nobody seems to want to make a tough decision.  I thought you all said that doing nothing was not an option.” He told the commission he was disappointed in the commissioners’ lack of courage–and rebuked one of them for smirking as he spoke. 

David Eckert, another barrier island resident, was even harsher: “Please stop the charade of going through this and taking your stubborn positions,” he said. “You don’t have any choice. You only can do the unincorporated area. There’s no time left..” He urged the commission to work on the unincorporated 10 miles starting now, being “the only path forward” for now, and bring something beyond that at a later date. “If you don’t do that, we’re going to have to take this message to our state representative and so forth, because this [commission] is not functioning for us,” he said. “You are not providing any guidance to your staff today, and it’s a sham. I’m sorry to have to say that.” 

Losing a “generational impact”

Dance agreed: “We’re losing the opportunity to make a generational impact to preserve the beach community and the characteristic of what makes Flagler County, Flagler County,” he said. “If not now, when?” he said of taking on the county’s entire 18 miles of shoreline. “If not us, who?” If the county doesn’t commit, he said, it will lose future state and federal money. If it’s not implemented now, when will the beach be fixed, he asked. 

“It’s unfortunate. I think we have missed an opportunity to be able to have said, in the future, in the next 50 years, will this be the moment? Will this be where we failed Flagler County? And I didn’t want to be the one that said that. I wanted to be part of something that solves a problem. But it appears we’re not headed that way.” 

Carney responded to the on the verge of anger. She said she and others on the commission had let the county administrator know months ago that they were opposed to the sales tax increase, that they wanted alternatives. “The same spreadsheet that has been rotating through this board for the last year is still the same spreadsheet,” Carney said, her voice rising. “A half cent sales tax in this county right now is not going to solve this issue. We don’t have four votes. We don’t have Palm Coast.”

She was right about the four votes. She was speculating about Palm Coast. 

“I am opposed to the fact that I cannot get any other information out of this staff than a half-cent sales tax that they have been trying to get for the last four and a half years,” Carney continued. “You are overtaxing.” She added: “I have done everything I physically can do as an accountant to make sense of this funding plan, and I can’t make sense of it. So I’m not voting for it.”

Richardson was equally glum.  “I was going to call the question today to just end it, because I’m tired of hearing about it, tired of being the no person,” she said. “We are building mountains of buildings and remodeling and refinishing, but hey, the beach is the most important part of Flagler County, but why isn’t that money going there? That’s my question.” She said she wants cuts, not additional taxes. “We’re going to see cuts like you’ve never seen before, and I know it’s coming, it;s coming all over the place,” she said. “If that means losing some things, we’re going to have to lose some things, because you can’t have everything on your plate all the time.”

Richardson, too, took a swipe at the new library rising across the street from the Sheriff’s Operations Center. “The beach is important, but building a $10 million building isn’t, in my opinion,” she said, though few of those dollars could have been used for beach management, and none are recurring dollars. 

Richardson was profoundly misunderstanding budgeting, as the county administrator let her know (without naming her), moments later: “We as staff need to have some direction from the board on what is it that you don’t want to fund,” Petito said, “because we cannot simply cut $12 million from a budget, because you’d be taking roughly about 20 percent of the budget.” Even if, theoretically, the budget was cut $12 million, those are recurring needs, year after year: the management plan needs $12 million a year. 

Budget math

As for the options Carney keeps seeking, Petito has “already whittled away the decision units to just two things,” Dance said, and those generated just $1.5 million. 

“You’d have to make cuts into your programs and your personnel,” Petito said. “So you’d have to look at laying off positions that are not public safety, reducing hours of operation, or picking what it is that we currently do that you don’t want to do anymore, because it has to be recurring.”

A depressed Commissioner Greg Hansen sounded as defeated as Dance. “I’m afraid to open my mouth. I really am. This is this is so negative on the county,” Hansen said. “I agree with Andy, if not now, when? We’re making a decision here to do away with the Army Corps of Engineer project. It’s gone. We’re trying to get them to come back and do some of the northern counties so we can save money there. They’re not going to come back, because we’re going to void the contract with them on [in] Flagler Beach.” That also means other areas of Flagler Beach’s shore will be lost. 

“I think it’s so short-sighted to just say, flat say no to the half-cent sales tax when we’re talking about $14 a year for a family of four,” he continued. “That’s about what it works out to be. It’s not onerous. We’re not killing anything. If you read the rules, it doesn’t apply to medical, doesn’t apply to food, only applies to the first $5,000 of a major purchase.” 

It came down to generating $12 million every year for the beach, Dance said. That amount can’t be generated through cuts. “What is next?”

Carney said the issue can be put to referendum in 2026. Meanwhile, the taxing district can be implemented, a portion of property tax revenue can be shifted, and tourism tax revenue can be increased. “Do some different math, you will get there,” she claimed. “Somebody just has to put the pencil on the paper.” As for Flagler Beach, the city could have its own special taxing district, she said. “How about putting some skin in the game? How about taking your parking fees and putting it towards the beach?” (Parking fees will not generate anywhere near the sort of revenue that could fund beach management in the city, however.) 

“So yes, we are going to have to cut and yes, maybe we only get eight firefighters. You know, I don’t know. Why are we making this decision? Why isn’t it presented to us already decided?” Carney said. 

Dance was disbelieving. “It’s prudent upon us to give solid advice to the administrator on things that affect the community,” he said. “It’s all of our jobs. It’s not just the administrator. We give them guidance to make these policy decisions. It’s a policy decision to not hire adequate fire staff.”

Petito, her own voice eventually betraying some controlled anger, made the point after lecturing the commissioners at length on revenue options in the county, what makes up the recurring $12 million, and what options the administration has to cut programs: “If there are programs you don’t want to do,” Petito said, “or long term things that you have funded, I can’t arbitrarily cut them and then have a resident come to you and say, Well, why did you cut this program that I have the authority to do that? No, I did not. That takes the board, and that’s why I need direction from you as a board to tell me what it is you support or don’t support.”

At one point Richardson went as far as saying the new south-side library should neither be staffed nor completed. 

“Are you going to stop construction?” Dance asked her. 

“Possibly, if that’s what’s necessary. It doesn’t stop it permanently. It stops it for the time until the beach can be renourished. If that’s the priority, then have a priority. You can’t have 80 priorities and say we don’t have any money for them. It’s called budgeting.” 

“Without severe penalties, you’re not going to stop that project from being completed. It is, it is a commitment we have made,” Dance said. “Those are one-time funds. They’re not recurring.” 

“ Maybe I don’t understand a thing you guys are talking about. Maybe that’s it,” Richardson said, referring to the recurring $12 million needed for the beach. “Maybe I’m just not smart enough for beach nourishment,”

When Carney learned that the county would give up renourishing the segment of Flagler Beach north of the pier, and Beverly Beach, as it was planning to do in 2026, if the 18-mile plan didn’t go through (and if the sales tax wasn’t approved), she switched. 

But asked today if she was willing to stick with that switch, Carney said: “At that moment I was, yes.” 

That moment may have passed.