I am beginning to think that Pam Richardson and Kim Carney, the two Flagler County commissioners sacrificing our beaches to ideological fantasy, think County Administrator Heidi Petito is a magician. Or maybe that she can generate millions of dollars to save the beaches through some cryptocurrency scheme. More likely, they just don’t seem to like her very much. They’re trying to undermine her tenure by accusing her of obstruction and deception.
Petito is capable of both, as are most county and city managers. Look at what Bunnell City Manager Alvin Jackson is doing in Bunnell: he’s speeding through one of the most massive industrial rezoning schemes in the state and pretending it has nothing to do with that fuel dump residents rejected in Palm Coast and Ormond Beach. He’s sneaking in the fuel dump–either in that rezoned area or further south in Bunnell–through a series of secret actions as he dubiously invokes a provision of law that allows him to temporarily hide public records related to economic development, preventing us from knowing who’s behind this. (Tell you what, Alvin: if it ain’t the farm, then just issue a statement saying so. You’re not breaching any confidences, just asserting a negative. But you won’t, proving by your own undue secrecy the motive of your secret.)
Petito is doing no such thing with the beaches. The obstruction–the wall between a viable beach and certain erosion–is the Carney-Richardson obstinacy.
The commission asked Petito to produce a plan to pay for beach management well into the future. After a series of misfires and rejections, she and deputy administrator Jorge Salinas pulled it off. The plan is expensive (more expensive by $4 million a year than a year ago, which raises its own legitimate questions). But it would ensure repairing all 18 miles of beaches and, more importantly, maintaining those beaches with periodic renourishment every so many years.
It would also fund Flagler County’s very expensive share of the 50-year U.S. Army Corps of Engineers renourishment project on 2.8 miles of sands in Flagler Beach. Without the county’s share, the Corps project dies, and with it any hope of preserving Flagler Beach’s sands.
All this depends on increasing the county’s sales tax by half a cent. Richardson and Carney don’t want to do that. Their position can be respected, up to a point. If they simply said they didn’t want a tax increase, that would be that. It’s ideological dogma, and it’s misplaced and misinformed (in other words, it’s politics), but it’s not deception. They would have to accept the consequence, which is killing the beach management plan.
Leann Pennington is also opposed to the sales tax increase. But she is not questioning the administrator’s methods, nor the sales tax increase on its merits. She opposes using that revenue for the beaches. Her constituents on the west side don’t care about the beaches. They care about stormwater and drainage. Pennington wants tax dollars spent there. So her opposition is based on priorities as she sees them, not on the kind of ideological opposition and fantasy wishes Carney and Richardson are conjuring.
(I think Pennington is wrong: people in Kansas and Okeechobee County are ponying up for Flagler County’s beaches through state and federal funds. What exempts the West Side? True, a minute share of their county taxes is already contributing to beach management. But a sales tax increase would be infinitesimal in comparison. Meanwhile those people in Kansas ponied up to vastly improve the West Side’s broadband access that Pennington championed. They did so through a federal aid bill, the same sort of bill giving us the new South Side library. Pennington happily cheered on that money, just as she championed and cheered a $10 million shelter at the county fairgrounds those people in Okeechobee also paid for. How about giving back a little for your neighbors a few miles east?)
Saving the beaches isn’t just for the fun of walking them at sunset. It’s not just tourism (whose share of local sales tax revenue county officials keep blatantly lying about: it’s nowhere near 30 percent). It’s a matter of safety to the barrier island as essential as codes that keep buildings from collapsing and firefighters that keep them from burning. And yes, it’s also matter of county identity. The West Side would scream bloody murder if no one lifted a finger if a preventable disease (probably caused by global warming) were ravaging crops, and they’d be right, even though we’d all survive without the West Side’s cabbages, potatoes and sod farms. Why should we not all lift a finger–and taxes–to save beaches getting ravaged by warming-caused sea rise and that, pound for pound, are far more valuable than potatoes and cabbages?
Carney and Richardson claim they’re all for the 18-mile plan. But they want Petito to give them alternatives to the sales tax they had supported as recently as early March. Then reversed, claiming that there are alternatives, and blaming Petito for not providing them. They have not presented a single one, at least not a viable one. Carney suggested the harebrained shift of the county’s Environmentally Sensitive Lands revenue to the beach, once it’s up for renewal, even though that would rob Peter’s forest to pay Paul’s dunes and would be a fifth of the needed revenue or less.
Richardson and Carney think gas tax money could do the trick, though state law doesn’t allow transportation revenue to fund beach management. Richardson thinks you can also cut a few million dollars out of the budget, DOGE-like (even as the nut case who brought you DOGE is now at war with his nut-case boss and his debt-exploding “big beautiful bill,” and both reveal what a swindle the whole thing was.) In any case, you need recurring revenue, not one-time cuts, and aside from ridiculous ideas like stopping construction on the South Side library or staffing it with ghosts, Richardson hasn’t dared propose a single cut.
That’s the sort of straw-man suggestions Carney and Richardson have come up with to claim that Petito can propose alternatives, but refuses to. But the only thing Petito is refusing to do is play into their deception. She knows: They want her to take the blame for what they’re doing: killing Flagler County’s beach-management plan–the only viable plan we have.
Personally, I think raising the property tax to whatever level necessary to fund beach management is the way. That’s a viable alternative. It cuts across all classes and regions. Everybody pays it (renters and businesses proportionately much more than homesteaded homeowners), Palm Coast and the other cities included. But even the two champions of the beach management plan–Andy Dance and Greg Hansen–won’t go there: raising the property tax is heresy for Republicans who love their revenue as regressive as possible. That’s a theology for another day, and compromise is more useful than theology.
That leaves us with the regressive sales tax, immune though are groceries, medicines, soon-to-be-clothes up to $75 and innumerable other exemptions. As a political reality, the sales tax remains the only choice, and compromise on that score, for all of us, the only way.
So Petito is right to resist. She’s not to blame here. The commissioners are. Maybe we can name what will be the inevitable 18-mile sea wall after Carney and Richardson as the beaches disappear and the barrier island’s life expectancy dwindles.
Pierre Tristam is the editor of FlaglerLive. A version of this piece airs on WNZF.
Marty Reed says
Carney & Richardson should be removed from office for their incompetence!
RBW says
Well said! Both need to be recalled or strongly voted out. One thing I have learned is you can’t fix stupid. These two are the definition of stupid! If property or loss of life happens due to not fixing the beaches which we pay taxes for, I wonder if a class action suit against the county can be launched? They knew there was a problem, failed to fix it. The definition of negligence!
Larry says
100% AGREE with every word! Disappointed in both of them.
Hoping those 2 realize within the next few weeks that the 1/2 cent tax is the best option available for all county residents and businesses. If they don’t approve it soon, I plan to vote against both of them in the next election.
Maryanne says
It figures, so much corruption coming from Flagler County commission
jim lang says
You go Pam.
Jim says
It just dumbfounds me that people get elected into office to represent the area and the people who live here but refuse to do their job once there.
If county commissioners do not want to support refurbishment of the beaches, just say so. Tell us all what you think.
If they do support it and don’t like the proposed funding method, come up with viable alternatives. This “just say no to taxes” stance isn’t getting us anywhere.
This is a beach community- the entire county and state. We moved here because of the proximity to beaches (among other reasons) and we all have to accept there is a cost associated with maintaining this area.
I ask all the commissioners to step and and propose a viable funding mechanism or vote for the $0.05 tax increase. Doing nothing is just irresponsible.
Just saying says
Put it on the ballot and let the voters decide
K says
Flagler County deserves much better than the choices we have at election time. Why are we magnets for ignorance and stupidity? Carney and Richardson are like Joe Mullins.
Not our money worth says
I do not blame commissioner Pennington for not supporting this increase strictly for the beach. Her constituents are underserved as is with the taxas already paid. The terrible road maintenance and complete lack of police response as just 2 examples. Today there were exactly 2 deputies to cover the entire western half of the county. To large of an area for only 2 officers. No wonder response time is horrendous
Don says
They are more worried about taking care of their realtor and builder friends than this community. Their solution is to cut low level positions within the County. Those that do the most for terrible pay. They do not have the guts to look into the multitude of management position that were created to give Heidi Petito’s friends huge raises and giving them the “Golden Parachute” for a huge retirement. How many paid positions and titles does Holly Albanese have? Library Director(she is almost never there), “Special Profects Coordinator” (They then hired someone to actually do the job), then it was acting HR Director, now she is an Assistant to The County Administrator. Annual wage $162,000! Amy Lukasik , Tourism Director, over $140,000. What tourism? Flagler Beach takes care of themselves, Palm Coast and Bunnell are not tourist destinations. Multitude of Fire Rescue personnel over $100,000. For what? They are an ambulance service 90% of the time. Steven Durrance, makes over $90,000 per year to mow grass at Princess place, and gets a home paid for by the County! Eliminate these “free homes” . Also a free house for employees at Haw Creek and other locations. How much would the County save by eliminating these free homes. Free rent, free utilities, free maintenance, free access to everything. Enough of the Good Old Boy crap!
Paul Larkin says
Responding to Jim writing “the $0.05 tax increase”…am I not right in saying the recommendation is for a $0.005 tax increase (that being a half cent increase not a 5 cent increase)??
JC says
You guys are silly. People were happy that Pam Richardson won her seat over Danko, now people are complaining. No complaints about Leann Pennington even if she is against the tax for semi similar reasons. Not everyone is for the sales tax increase. When I used to live in Duval County/Jacksonville people vote for half cent sales tax for the schools and other things here and there. It never worked out because at the end of the day they want more money (they the county governments), even when they told us that voting yes for a half cent sales tax increase would be enough money.
Robin says
I’m very disappointed in both Commissioners Carney and Richardson. I expected a common sense approach to the County’s problems. I’m surprised that the FCBR and the developers aren’t raising hell about this. In business school and my medical sales experience, you identify a problem AND propose a feasible solution.
SMH.
I'm done says
@Jim,
This has been an ongoing project for these past eight years. There have been studies on top of studies. Literally years of studies. Two previous Commissions jumped through the necessary hoops to establish this program. It took efforts at the local, state and federal levels to get all this approved.
Then in November two new Commissioners were elected to the board. They were aware of this massive plan when they ran, of the years it took to put it into place, were thoroughly briefed on it, stated they would support it in debates and before local government bodies. And now they do not.
It will take 4 votes to pass this, so unless there is a miracle, it will not pass. They have had 7 months to study this.
The barrier island is the greatest source of tax revenue in this county. If there is a major hurricane, the flooding will be felt for miles inland. Property will be worthless.
The tax is the least painful way to do this. It would cost a family of 4 anywhere from $6 to $14 per month. The only other way to do it is to cut staff and services, approximately 80 positions. I will not vote to re-elect three of these commissioners and I hope that you won’t either.
John Orlando says
All this arguing about a 1/2 cent sales tax is just a diversion to make the public forget that the issue that matters most is that very little of the 11 mile Flagler beachfront is accessible to the public. Most of the shoreline is private property and public funds should not be used to protect it. Even the few public beaches are in such bad shape that most residents have no interest in visiting them. The rest rooms at Varn Park and Jungle Hut are decrepit. There are so many rocks at Jungle Hut and Old Salt Park that you can’t swim there. Parking is inadequate everywhere, especially Flagler Beach which is a complete joke. It is obvious that all the improvements being made to Flagler Beach and the Pier are mostly going to benefit the guests at the new hotel. Even the small parking lots in Flagler Beach are used mainly by people eating at the restaurants, not beachgoers. And you wonder why Palm Coasters don’t want to contribute to the beach funding plan….they don’t have a beach to contribute to!
R.S. says
Even though half a penny doesn’t seem to be much, a sales tax sets a bad precedent. Upping the property taxes of people living by the beach is the way to go. Their insurance is subsidized by the State; they might as well fork over some more for their ostentations living in future flood zones. Besides, beach erosion is the way of the future as long as climate change keeps going unchecked.