Three Flagler County School Board members–Christy Chong, Will Furry, Sally Hunt–voted Tuesday to close the Belle Terre Swim and Racquet Club to the public, 28 years after it was gifted to the district, which has run it with public access to a swimming pool, tennis courts and a fitness gym. The facility has been a financial puzzle for the district for 10 years as well as a cherished institution for a loyal if diminished corps of members. The closure to the public will not end the facility’s financial deficits. It will only reduce them.
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The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
The Atlantic Chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State hosts an open, freewheeling discussion, the weekly chess club for teens at the public library, India takes a page out of Trump’s book on Muslim bans.
Do Anti-Abortion Doctors Have Any Business Challenging Abortion Drug Access?
Who has the legal right to challenge decisions by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration? And should the moral umbrage of a group of anti-abortion rights doctors shift policy across the country, limiting women’s ability to get the widely used abortion drug mifepristone? These are a few of the central questions that the Supreme Court fielded on March 26 during the oral arguments in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine.
School Board’s Colleen Conklin Says County At One Time Paid Entire Cost of School Deputies
Speaking publicly for the first time about the revelation last month that county government was looking to pull back its share of funding for $1.4 million in “legacy” programs it helps pay for in the school district, including about $1 million for school resource deputies, Flagler County School Board member Colleen Conklin today asked for a public conversation, and said “disinformation” has obscured the fact that at one time, more than two decades ago, the county paid for the entirety of the bill.
Lawsuit Challenges Constitutionality of Florida Law Restricting Employment for Chinese and Some Others
Two graduate students and a professor on Monday challenged the constitutionality of a 2023 state law that restricts employment of people from China and six other nations at Florida public universities and colleges. The challenge alleges, in part, that the law is unconstitutional because it is trumped by federal immigration laws.
AdventHealth and Construction Manager Top Out New Medical Plaza at SR100 Campus
The two-story, 30,000-square-foot standalone facility will serve as a vital hub for comprehensive cancer treatment, including radiation oncology and medical oncology, and will offer advanced therapies, personalized cancer care, and resources for patients and their families.
Palm Coast Takes Stock of Its Capital Funds Ahead of Budgeting for Parks, Roads, Fire, Swales and Utilities
The Palm Coast City Council this morning got a glance at what the city’s own major capital or construction plans will look like over the next 10 years, where the money will come from, and what city projects may drive the spending. The review of the city’s Capital Improvement Plan, or CIP, combines the tedious with the essential, delineating the wishful from the possible.
Marcus Chamblin Trial in Circle K Murder Set for April 8 as Co-Defendant Derrius Bauer Waits Until September
The trial of Derrius Braxton Bauer on a first-degree murder charge in the shooting death of Deon O’Neal Jenkins at a Palm Coast Circle K station in 2019 has been pushed to September to first accommodate the trial of Bauer’s co-defendant, Marcus Chamblin, set for April 8. The Chamblin trial includes a potential list of over 120 witnesses, will stretch over two weeks, and will be one of the more complex local criminal trials in recent years.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
The Palm Coast City Council meets in workshop for the first time since firing its city manager, the School Board, alas, holds a pair of meetings, and a few thoughts about libraries loved and lost.
The Firing of Palm Coast City Manager Denise Bevan Is Indefensible
Setting aside fairly raised implications by two city council members of sunshine-law violations, there were inexcusable elements of brutality, arbitrariness, and sexism in the firing of Palm Coast City Manager Denise Bevan last week, none of which should be swept past by claims that it’s over and done with, that we should move on. Those claims only benefit the firing’s orchestrators and reward the ill manner of it all. They explain nothing. Explanations are due.
The Problem With Shaming People for Auschwitz Selfies
Based on our analysis, we think it may be better that young people engage with Holocaust sites in their own way, rather than not engaging at all. We also suggest that some commenters may be just as guilty as the selfie-takers, using their comments to show themselves in a positive light. Paradoxically, this is precisely what they are shaming the selfie-takers for doing: centering themselves, using the Holocaust as a prop.
Lawn Care Without Waste: April Is Water Conservation Month
Highlighting its commitment to the preservation and sustainable use of Florida’s water resources, the St. Johns River Water Management District’s Governing Board has officially proclaimed April 2024 as Water Conservation Month. This annual recognition, now in its 24th year, serves as a reminder of the critical role water conservation plays, particularly during the dry month of April when water demands escalate due to springtime planting.
DeSantis Signs Bill Restricting Children’s Social Media Accounts and Inviting Yet Another Lawsuit
With the state preparing for a legal challenge from the tech industry, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed a high-profile bill aimed at keeping children off social-media platforms. Paul Renner and other key supporters argue that social-media companies have created addictive platforms that harm children’s mental health and can lead to sexual predators communicating with minors. But critics, including tech-industry groups, argue the bill is unconstitutional and point to courts blocking similar legislation in other states.
Michael Wells Sentenced to 21 Months in Prison for Standoff With Deputies and Domestic Violence
Michael Wells, the 57-year-old Palm Coast resident at the center of a two-hour standoff with police on Brunswick Lane that ended with several felony charges last September was sentenced today to 21 months in prison followed by 24 months on drug-offender probation.
Bunnell’s Chicken Pantry Is No More After 68 Years of Joyfully Frying Everything That Moves
After 68 years in business under more than half a dozen owners and in two locations, Bunnell’s Chicken Pantry is no more. Bunnell City Manager Alvin Jackson, whose office is across the way, said he’d been hearing of the business having financial difficulties before he saw the iconic red chicken on State Road 100 had been removed.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, March 25, 2024
The Flagler County Beekeepers Association holds its monthly meeting, the Bunnell City Commission meets, Randy Newman on Louisiana in 1927, and what it’s like to wake up to a minor flood and falling ceilings in one’s own home.
Even Nixon Said Americans Should Know ‘Whether Their President Is a Crook.’ Trump Says the Opposite.
When Nixon told British journalist David Frost in 1977 that “when the president does it … that means that it is not illegal,” Nixon hastened to add a crucial caveat that he was talking about war powers and national security, and specifically emphasized that he did not “mean to suggest the president is above the law.” Trump says he is.
The Austin Example: Is It Time to Drop Minimum Parking Rules to Make Housing More Affordable?
Most cities require homes and businesses to have parking. Critics say they drive up housing costs, foster car dependency and raise carbon emissions. Austin last year became the largest city in the country to do away with its minimum parking requirements, following in the steps of other major cities like Portland, Minneapolis and San Jose. Nixing parking minimums is part of a slate of reforms in Austin to loosen city land-use regulations and allow more housing to be built amid the city’s severe housing affordability crisis.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Sunday, March 24, 2024
Warbirds Over Flagler Fly-In at County Airport, the 2024 Flagler Wellness Expo, Caryl Churchill’s ‘Vinegar Tom,’ at City Repertory Theatre, the DeLand Outdoor Art Festival, a few words about Glenn Gould.
Religious Charter School Case Could Demolish Church-State Wall in Public Education
On April 2, 2024, Oklahoma’s Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case that could reshape rules even further: whether to allow a Catholic charter school to open its doors, which critics say would all but demolish the line between church and state in education.
Joint Investigation Leads to Arrest of Antarius Henderson, 23, in Bunnell Shooting that Left 20 Year Old Critical
The shooting incident in Bunnell’s South Anderson Street involved three people firing some 30 or 31 shots (police recovered 31 shell casings): Henderson, the 19-year-old man he’d been fighting with, and a 17-year-old boy. Some of the residents around the scene of the shooting, including young children, hid in their bathrooms as bullets flew.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Saturday, March 23, 2024
Free Youth NCCAA Sports Clinic at Holland Park, Warbirds Over Flagler Fly-In at Flagler County Airport, Caryl Churchill’s ‘Vinegar Tom,’ at City Repertory Theatre, Akira Kurosawa, “Dersu Uzala” and Siberia.
Palm Coast Approves Steps for Trio of Developments That Will Add 689 Homes in North and South of City
The Palm Coast City Council and its planning board between them approved different steps for a trio of developments in north and south Palm Coast that will add a combined 689 single-family homes to the city’s inventory. The approvals were for the final plat of Phase 2B of Sawmill Branch off U.S. 1, the final plat of Seminole Palms Phase 1 on the west side of Seminole Woods Boulevard, north of Grand Landings Parkway, and for the subdivision master plan of Sawmill Branch Phase 3.
Kate Middleton’s Photo Was Doctored. So Are a Lot of Images You See Today.
The most charitable interpretation of Kate Middleton’s doctoring of a family image is that she was trying to remove distracting or unflattering elements. But the artefacts could also point to multiple images being blended together. This could either be to try to show the best version of each person (for example, with a smiling face and open eyes), or for another purpose.
Chamber Never Consulted Superintendent Before Snatching ‘State of Flagler Schools’ For Its Own, and Charging Money
The local chamber of commerce is hosting a $30-a-plate lunch on April 30 featuring School Superintendent LaShakia Moore and billed as “The State of Flagler Schools,” the title of an address the superintendent has traditionally delivered publicly, for free, once a year. The chamber never bothered to consult Moore about it or, as a courtesy, ask if it could appropriate the public event’s name—let alone for a pay-to-attend event. The Flagler Education Foundation, a co-sponsor, is not getting a share of the proceeds.
Old Kings Road at U.S. 1 Closes for Months for Roundabout Construction
Flagler County officials are alerting residents that Old Kings Road will be closed at U.S. 1 by the Florida Agricultural Museum beginning Monday for several months to accommodate road construction there. There is a marked detour at Matanzas Woods Parkway that motorists are instructed to use.
Pressure Mounts on DeSantis to Veto Vacation Rental Bill as Flagler County’s Exception Draws Sneers
A growing list of opponents have been inundating Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office with emails and phone calls to veto the vacation-rental bill that, after 10 years’ tries, succeeded in scaling back local regulation of the short-term rental industry–except in Flagler County, which got the favor of an exception thanks to Paul Renner, the house speaker and Palm Coast representative.
40 Flagler Schools Students Advance to International Problem Solvers Competition After Wins in Orlando
A total of 178 students from five schools (Flagler Palm Coast High School, Matanzas High School, Buddy Taylor Middle School, Indian Trails Middle School, and Rymfire Elementary School) took part in the competition, which drew 511 students from across the state. Of the Flagler Schools contingent, 40 have been invited to vie at the international competition, which will take place June 5-9 at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.
Flagler County’s Unemployment Rate Holds at 4.1%, Florida’s Holds at 3.1%
In Flagler County, the unemployment rate held at 4.1 percent, same as in January, with very modest growth in the labor force and the number of people employed–just under 50,000–and no change in the number of those collecting unemployment–2,121.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Friday, March 22, 2024
Unemployment numbers are released, groundbreakings for the future Bunnell City Hall and Police Department and for the future Commerce Parkway, Anna Magdalena Bach and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Caryl Churchill’s ‘Vinegar Tom,’ at City Repertory Theatre.
Why Millions of Americans Still Believe the 2020 Election Was ‘Stolen’ From Trump
Two thirds of Republican voters (and nearly 3 in 10 Americans) continue to believe that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and that Biden was not lawfully elected. In fact, this “election denialism” is one of the major differences between those who support Trump and those who voted for his rival, Nikki Haley.
DeSantis Signs ‘Live Healthy’ Package Spending $1.5 billion to Bolster Health Care Programs
The plan focuses on retaining and attracting health care workers to the state, creating a loan program for innovative health care projects, establishing behavioral health teaching hospitals, and providing at-home and community-based services to Floridians with disabilities.
‘Promenade at Town Center’ Will Add 204 Apartments Atop Shops in First Development of Its Kind There
Palm Coast’s Town Center will finally get the kind of development that was meant to define it when it was conceived in 2003–a 17-acre project mixing commercial, retail and residential uses in a six-building complex totaling 233,000 square feet, called The Promenade at Town Center. It’ll be right in the center of it all: at the southwest corner of Bulldog Drive and Central Avenue, with 1,100 feet of frontage on Central–about three football fields’ length—and 350 feet on Bulldog.
Go Slow and Look Down, Boaters: Manatees Are Dispersing from Their Wintering Refuges
Manatees overwinter in Florida springs, power plant discharges and other warm-water sites, relying on water that is warmer than 68 degrees Fahrenheit. As spring brings warmer temperatures, manatees gradually disperse from their winter habitats and are more likely to be in rivers, canals and nearshore waters.
60-Day Rabies Alert Issued for Parts of Palm Coast After Cat Tests Positive
The Florida Department of Health in Flagler County is issuing a rabies alert for parts of the county. This is in response to a cat that tested positive on March 15. So far this year, as of Wednesday, the Department of Health lists 1,565 cases of possible rabies exposure in Florida, including 136 cases in Broward County, 125 in Miami Dade and three in Flagler. Twenty-three people have died of rabies in the country since 2009.
Sally Hunt Is Right: Security Isn’t What It Should Be in Flagler’s Biggest Public Building
Flagler County School Board member Sally Hunt is right when she deems certain public meetings less than secure. The county and the school board need to to take their own and the public’s safety more seriously in the Government Services Building–the county seat–not with harebrained ideas like locking public meetings’ doors, but with reasonable, inexpensive and unintrusive measures such as metal detectors that are becoming standard in public buildings.
Opponents Seeking to Redefine Constitutional Language on ‘Persons’ to Keep Abortion Rights Proposal Off Ballot
With the Florida Supreme Court deciding whether an abortion-rights constitutional amendment should go on the November ballot, Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office and abortion opponents are urging justices to consider another part of the state Constitution that they say could apply to “unborn children.” Moody’s office Monday raised the possibility of filing an additional brief about what is described as the “natural persons” provision of the state Constitution.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Thursday, March 21, 2024
Blessedly, one of the shortest Briefings in memory, with happy birthday wishes to Alvin Jackson, Story Time for Preschoolers at the Flagler Beach library, and a little advice from Gloria Gaynor and John McEnroe.
How Christians Misused the Bible to Justify Slavery
How had religions supposedly dedicated to propagating the word of a compassionate and loving God become so intricately involved in slavery’s “appalling evil”? The answer is rooted in a grotesque misuse of the very words of the Bible. Of the many ways that Christians have invoked the Bible to justify their actions, none has exceeded in cruelty and willful ignorance their appropriation of the “Curse of Ham” to justify slavery.
A Hunter In Bunnell Is Mistaken For a Wild Turkey and Shot In Front of His Young Sons
Frank Coleman Whiddon, a 37-year-old Pierson resident, was turkey-hunting with his two sons–one of whom was celebrating his 12th birthday– right at sunup Sunday morning in the woods near Bunnell when he was himself mistaken for a turkey by another hunter and shot.
Sheriff, Palm Coast and County Examine How to Share Burden of Adding 3 Dozen Deputies Over Next 3 Years
The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office has a current deficit of 37 road deputies, according to an analysis produced for the Sheriff’s Office, Palm Coast and the county. The analysis is intended to yield an objective, permanent method of paying for law enforcement based on calls for service. The analysis was the centerpiece of a joint meeting today of the two governments and the Sheriff’s Office as they devise ways to share the burden of law enforcement funding.
Out of Her Control: Palm Coast Mayor David Alfin Explains Why He Fired City Manager Denise Bevan
In a 40-minute interview Tuesday afternoon, Alfin explained what led him to make his motion, threading a needle between lavish praise for Bevan in one sentence and sharp criticism of city management in the next, while explicitly conceding that Bevan may have been the victim of political circumstances. Bevan, in sum, paid a paid a price for election-year political currents she was not in control of.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Joint Workshop on 5-Year Public Safety Plan, the Palm Coast Planning and Land Development Board meets, an evidentiary hearing in the case of George Proulx, who argues his four-year prison sentence for molesting girls was too harsh, “Drug Thugs and Rambo Guns.”
Does Hosting Major Sports Events Like Olympics or World Cup Pay Off?
Host countries appear to suffer from increased tax burdens, low returns on public investments, high construction costs, and onerous running cost of facilities after the event. Communities can also be blighted by noise, pollution, and damage to the environment, while increased criminal activity and potential conflicts between locals and visitors can take a toll on their quality of life.
Eric Cooley Wins 3rd Term on Flagler Beach Commission in Subdued Election as Trump Takes Presidential Primary
Incumbent Flagler Beach City Commissioner Eric Cooley won his third three-year term today in a subdued municipal election framed by the Republican presidential primary, which former president Donald Trump–the only candidate not to have suspended his or her campaign–unsurprisingly won.
2 Fellow-Council Members Sharply Criticize Ed Danko for Leaving Meeting to Campaign After Firing City Manager
Palm Coast City Council members Theresa Pontieri and Nick Klufas, who were on the losing end of a 3-2 vote that fired City Manager Denise Bevan this morning, were sharply critical of Vice Mayor Ed Danko, who left the meeting immediately after the firing to campaign at the public library. Both council members hinted that Danko had shown up to the meeting only to cast the firing vote, and that he therefore knew about the vote ahead of time–what would amount to a sunshine law violation.
Palm Coast City Manager Denise Bevan Unceremoniously Fired Without Cause in 3-2 Vote on Mayor’s Motion
In a stunning move, Palm Coast Mayor David Alfin this morning motioned to fire City Manager Denise Bevan, without cause. The motion carried, 3-2, with Alfin and Council members Ed Danko and Cathy Heighter in the majority.
Ex-Marine Offended By Jesus Joke Repeatedly Stabs One Man and Pummels Another at Palm Harbor Pkwy. Circle K
Hunter Detherow, a 22-year-old former U.S. Marine, is at the Flagler County jail on $300,000 bond following accusations that he repeatedly stabbed one man and beat up another after a discussion on religion took a bad turn at the Circle K at Palm Harbor near midnight Sunday.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Food Truck Tuesday returns in Central Park, the Flagler County canvassing board meets three times to go over ballots in the least consequential election of the year, inflation progress stalls, the Flagler Beach Library Writers’ Club meets.
Why Are Chinese Migrants At the Southern Border?
In many cases those attempting to make the crossing are small-business owners who saw irreparable damage to their primary or sole source of income due to China’s “zero COVID” policies. The migrants are women, men and, in some cases, children accompanying parents from all over China. The dramatic uptick is the result of a confluence of factors that range from a slowing Chinese economy and tightening political control by President Xi Jinping.