Dr. David Karaffa can treat a variety of conditions including seizure disorders, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, strokes, migraine, back pain, neuropathy and more.
Local Business
Florida and Flagler Back to Anemic Job Growth as Unemployment Stalls, Reflecting U.S. Trend
Florida added just 5,300 jobs in April, and the state unemployment rate would have risen back sharply had the labor department not revised its April figures to show a much higher unemployment rate than it announced last month.
From Food Lion to Charter School: Deal Close To Convert Long-Vacant Flagler Beach Store
Jacksonville-based Florida International Language Academy has been on the hunt for a location in Flagler for its 364-student K-8, language-oriented school, opening in August. Talks in Bunnell and Palm Coast fell through, returning the company to the Food Lion location in Flagler Beach.
Despite Warnings of Corruption, Palm Coast Council Approves Meeker’s Job “Posse” Scheme
In a victory for Frank Meeker, the city will pay job “recruiters” $1,000 for being instrumental in expanding or relocating out-of-county business to Palm Coast, but many of the defining criteria remain vague and fraught with what the city terms unintended consequences.
Cup Cakes Get Their Day in Court as Palm Coast Agrees to a Hearing on Home Bakeries
A split Palm Coast City Council has been wrestling with a proposal to allow small home-based commercial bakery operations, as long as the bakeries don’t sell products from the home. Food safety has been a hang-up.
As FPL’s Smart Meters Convert 50,000 Flagler Homes, County Takes Dim View of Opponents
Florida Power & Light will roll out 50,000 smart meters in Flagler homes and small businesses over six months beginning this summer. The Flagler County Commission supports an opt-out measure for customers, some of whom thing the smart meters are invasive and dangerous, but FPL already provides a temporary opt-out.
Bob Tibbs, 70-Year-Old Flagler Moonshine Man, Is Arrested for His Whiskey Trade
They call him Mr. Tibbs: Bob Tibbs, 70, of west Flagler, moonshine producer and shrimp peddler. He faces a third-degree felony for his illegal alcohol operation, which he says also helps him fuel his lawnmower.
In a Reversal, Flagler Beach Will Consider New Regulations for Roving Street Vendors
Commissioners agreed unanimously Thursday evening to draft a new ordinance or licensing rules that would define where, how and how often roving vendors would be allowed to in the city.
Signing For 3 More Years at City Market Place, Palm Coast Explores New City Hall Options
Palm Coast city government’s new lease at City Market Place is considerably cheaper than the $20,000 a month it’s been paying since 2008, but council members are now talking about a lease-purchase deal for a new city hall at Town Center.
At Nature Scapes, Palm Coast Garden Club Grows Its Annual Show Into a Special Event
The Palm Coast Garden Club found a new home for its annual garden show at Nature Scapes, the stately nursery on Old Brick Road, where, on Saturday, some 50 vendors drew a few thousand visitors and plant lovers.
Flagler and Florida Unemployment Rates Drop Sharply, Confirming Uptick in Economic Activity
Flagler County’s and Florida’s unemployment rates dropped significantly in March, solidifying an economic recovery and confirming what many local business owners have been saying for the last several months: the last quarter’s economic activity is the best they’ve seen since the beginning of the Great Recession.
Citing Health Concerns and Competition, Palm Coast Kills Home-Based Bakeries
Palm Coast Mayor Jon Netts proved to be the swing vote against an initiative that would have allowed small bakeries to operate out of homes. The rejection adds to the city’s pattern of conflicted reactions to start-ups–supporting them with one hand while scuttling them with the other.
Panera Bread’s Covelli Secret: From Ohio to Palm Coast, By Way of a Social Conscience
Panera Bread’s odyssey from seed to giant, and its remarkable expansion during the country’s toughest years is a rarely told story of fortune and resilience, with that rare additive for American businesses: a social conscience.
Panera Bread Rises Crisply in Palm Coast, With Promise of Second Location Within a Year
Panera Bread in Palm Coast, long awaited, opened to a special reception for a few hundred people on Tuesday at the State Road 100 location, with a grand public opening on Wednesday. The company is planning a second location on Palm Coast Parkway by early 2013.
Palm Coast Data Revenue Now Half Its 2008 Level, When It Signed Job-Creation Deals
Palm Coast Data’s revenue was down to $15.6 million in the last quarter, less than half the $32.2 million it recorded in the quarter preceding its agreement to consolidate in Palm Coast. The company won’t say how many jobs are on its Palm Coast payroll.
From Depression to Mere Recession Flagler Unemployment Falls to 12.7%
Flagler’s improving numbers also show a net increase of nearly 800 people with jobs, reversing previous months’ declines in both the labor force and actual employment. Florida’s unemployment rate also fell, to 9.4 percent.
Rites of Spring: Flagler’s Jobs Council Retreats to Princess Place for Goal-Setting With CEO
For the third time in three years, an economic development effort gets under way to “to lead Flagler County out of the dismal economic landscape” of the last few years, hoping, this time, to make a mark.
Bait, Tackle and BBQ at Bings Landing as Flagler Cooks Up Park’s Latest Shop Lease
Captain’s BBQ at Bings Landing will operate the concession shop and kayak,canoe and bike rentals for $500 a month’s rent in Flagler County’s latest attempt to give life to a handsome but commercially problematic location.
Flagler Residents Would See $84-a-Year Jump in FPL’s Base Rate Despite Solid Profits
Despite higher profits than most industries, Florida Power & Light (FPL) is requesting the $690.4 million rate increase in 2013. FPL says the increase would be offset by fuel cost decreases, at least in 2013, reducing the net bill increase to $2.48 a month.
Flagler Fish Company and Blue at the Topaz Join for Charity “Blue Fish Dinner”
Blue at the Topaz and Flagler Fish Company in Flagler Beach are joining chefs Gary Maresca and Chris Casper to offer dinner for 12 at a place of your choosing, with 10 percent of proceeds going to charity.
In Field Trip Across Western Flagler, Jobs Council Learns of Unheralded Ag Power
Flagler County’s jobs council went on a field trip today—the latest in a series designed to educate its members about the county’s economy—through western Flagler, for a first-hand look at the second-largest economic engine locally: agriculture.
Conflicted Incubator: A Divided Palm Coast Council May Relax Home-Based Bakeries
The issue, prompted by a couple looking to start a home bakery, illustrates two contradicting strains in Palm Coast’s idea of itself–the quiet residential town as opposed to the depressed and unemployed city looking for rejuvenation summed up in its economic-development slogan, “Prosperity 2021.”
Ice Cream Truck 1, Jane Mealy 0: Mobile Vendor Restrictions Fail in Flagler Beach
A proposed ordinance to restrict mobile vendors and favored by Commissioner Mealy had no support and was tabled indefinitely as a popular rally on behalf of an ice cream truck owner Sandy Kinney proved successful.
Details Emerge in Strathmore Deli Collapse as Landlord and Lender Sue
The reality of the closure of the popular Palm Coast deli is more complicated than its owners let on as a lender just sued the owners over a loan default and the landlord sued them in December over $20,000 in back rent.
Sparing RVs, Palm Coast Takes On Truckers Making Rest Stops of Box Store Parking Lots
Truckers like using box stores’ parking lots as rest stops. Store managers haven’t objected and nearby restaurants love it. But Palm Coast is cracking down on the practice at council member Bill Lewis’s urging, though another council member says it’s not been an issue.
Perth Amboy’s Van Eckert Accepts Flagler’s Offer To Be Economic Development CEO
Helga Van Eckert has accepted Flagler County’s government’s offer to become its latest economic development CEO. She will start in late February with a salary of close to $110,000 a year. The future of Greg Rawls, the previous CEO still serving through the transition, is unclear.
Debt, Divorce, Downsizing and Death: The Thriving State of Estate Sales in Palm Coast
Estate Sales have been the lifeblood of Diana Minotti’s business in Palm Coast in the last four years, underscoring the extent–and occasional upside–of a recession as people retrench and sell off luxuries from fine art to historic furniture.
JoAnne King, Who Oversaw Florida Hospital Flagler’s Hospice Expansion, Is Elevated to VP
As administrative director JoAnne King oversaw Florida Hospital Flagler’s expansion into hospice care across county lines last year, a first for a Florida Hospital. She was promoted to vice president for ancillary services, overseeing a half dozen departments, including hospice.
Flagler’s Unemployment Falls to 13.9%, But Labor Force Is Down 3.6% Over the Past Year
Flagler’s rate is the lowest in three years, suggesting sustained, if slow, improvement, but the workforce has shrunk by 1,200, raising concerns that the county is losing population or attraction as a place to work.
Palm Coast’s Business Assistance Center Offering Three Training Sessions in January
The training sessions, ranging in themes on how to start your business to managing cash flow to developing a marketing strategy, are priced between $15 and $35.
New Garbage Contract: Hazardous Waste Option and Lower Monthly Cost, to Around $19
Only very faint public objections were raised Tuesday to Palm Coast’s new 5-year contract with Waste Pro for garbage, which would add curbside hazardous waste pick-up and lower the overall cost, assuming fuel prices don’t rise.
Palm Coast Observer Taking On News-Tribune As It Aims for Twice A Week By April
The Palm Coast Observer’s move would be a frontal assault on the Daytona Beach News-Journal’s diminishing hold on the Flagler market, where the paper has also been contending with competition from three new radio stations and online media.
No Surprise: Waste Pro Will Be Palm Coast’s Trash Hauler for Another 5 Years & $38 Million
Residents may see a negligible difference in their roughly $20-a-month trash bill, if that, as the city council, convinced by Waste Pro’s low bid, complies with what the city administration had wanted all along.
Crediting FPC, 2 Manfres Develop Energy-Saving Product With Broad Applications
FPC graduate Alec Manfre is the COO of Bractlet, a start-up company that received $40,000 from the Chilean government to develop an energy-saving device he and colleagues invented at Georgia Tech. Manfre’s sister Catherine, also an FPC graduate, heads the company’s marketing.
For 1,200 News-Journal Pensioners, a Bittersweet Victory in Appeals Court’s Overrule
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an Orlando district judge misread Florida law when he brushed aside a $26.5 million claim from the federal PBGC to cover present and future retirement payments for Daytona Beach News-Journal employees.
Senate Sweep: More Slots, Lower Gambling Taxes, Only Minor Internet Cafe Regulations
A Senate committee Monday considers a sweeping proposal that would allow three mega-casinos in Florida, offer more slots at pari-mutuel facilities and rein in Internet cafes a little.
1 Architect, 1 Banker, 1 Health Consultant. Mix. Serve. Result: Thai Korner Restaurant.
Palm Coast’s Thai Korner Restaurant, open one year, is the result of an unlikely partnership between three vastly different latter-day restaurateurs willing to defy a climate murderous to new businesses.
Garage Sale: NYT Sells 16 Papers To News- Journal For Less Than $10 Million Apiece
Each title went for barely $9 million, less than half the $20 million Halifax Media paid for the Daytona Beach News-Journal alone when it acquired that paper in April 2010–at discount from the $300 million price originally set by a federal judge in 2006.
News-Journal Owner Halifax Media Buying New York Times’s 16 Regional Papers
The New York Times confirmed today that Halifax Media Group, owner of the Daytona Beach News-Journal since 2010, is buying the 16 newspapers in The New York Times Regional Group in what would represent a significant cultural and ideological shift away from centrism and liberalism for those 14 papers.
Of Art and Soul: Erin Walker’s Pottery Studio For All Creators Coils Into Palm Coast
The Art and Soul Studio at 25 Pine Cone Drive in Palm Coast is recreational paint-your-own-pottery shop for all ages and many occasions, including birthday parties and Wednesdays’ Wine-d Down, a bring-your-own-wine ladies night.
Palm Coast Accepts Garbage Hauling Bids But Doesn’t Open Them Publicly
The method continues a pattern that’s been less than transparent since fall when the city manager recommended renewing the contract with Waste Pro and skipping the bidding process.
Flagler’s 7 Governments Gather to Hear How Well Their Economic Development Is Doing
Despite enduringly high unemployment and a year of fraying rather than unity among local governments, the county hosted an intergovernmental summit Tuesday that piled back-patting on exclamation marks.
Palm Coast Would Underwrite Small Business Loans With Tax Dollars as New Incentive
The city’s loan-guarantee program would set aside $55,000 for existing, for-profit businesses looking to expand–or survive. The program is part of a series of economic development initiatives centered around the seven-month-old Business Assistance Center.
A Suicide in Walmart’s Parking Lot; Victim, 28, Was Connected to Tuesday’s Cop Escapee
Mike Saunders, 28, was found dead in his car in the Walmart parking lot Wednesday, of apparent carbon monoxide poisoning. He had been at the wheel of the same car, with Mochael Testa, when Testa was arrested near Marvin’s Gardens the day before–and escaped from a cop car.
Daytona’s Pier Restaurant Lease: $275,000 a Year; Flagler Beach’s: $36,000
Both cities spent the better part of the year negotiating new deals with restaurant owners, but while Flagler Beach city commissioners were criticized for selling their property short, the Daytona numbers are not necessarily better than Flagler Beach’s when several adjustments are factored in.
Palm Coast’s Strathmore Deli Closes, Citing Overhead; Another Strip Now Stressed
Strathmore Deli, renamed Best Bagels & Deli, was the high-traffic anchor for the Parkway Plaza strip between Plam Coast Parkway and Cypress Point. Its abrupt closure four years after it opened is rippling with consequences.
Charges Dropped: European Village Store Owner Was Falsely Accused of Gun Assault
Dan Ferrena, owner of Palm Coast Gold Buyers at European Village, was falsely accused of threatening a customer and his children with a gun. Ferrena now faces a long road to expunge his record.
Workers’ Black Fridays: Florida Second in Mass Layoffs in October; Chill Winds Ahead
While mass media’s attention has deflected attention to the annual post-Thanksgiving shopping craze known as black Friday, indicators point to conflicting and worrisome trends ahead for Florida’s and America’s pocketbooks.
Palm Coast Observer Bucks Bleaker Newspaper Trends As Weekly Nears 2-Year Mark
The Palm Coast Observer’s latest audit shows a weekly print run of 25,000 and a household reach in Palm Coast exceeding 60 percent, compared with the News-Journal’s daily reach of 20 percent.
Exodus at Flagler Chamber of Commerce As Four Staffers Resign in Four Weeks
After Peggy Heiser announced her resignation as tourism’s VP, Lauren Walsh, Nick Langille and Laura Gamba followed, though Chamber President Doug Baxter assures: “It’s got nothing to do with me,” while the TDC wondered if pay is adequate.