When arrested on suspicion of committing a crime, everyone in the United States has the right to due process and to defend themselves in court. But in a cash bail system, when judges set bail amounts, those who cannot pay the full amount remain jailed indefinitely — a clear violation of their due process rights — while the rich can pay their way out of jail.
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DeSantis Says Undocumented Immigrants Will ‘Regret’ Coming to Florida as He Signs Harsher Penalties Into Law
One bill doesn’t mention migrants specifically but imposes a mandatory 10-day jail sentence for a third or subsequent conviction for driving without a license or with a license that has been suspended, cancelled, or revoked. Another bumps criminal penalties for people who commit felonies after having been deported and returning to the United States.
Paul Renner Vaunts His Tenure as Speaker and the Millions He Steered to Flagler, But Evades Saying What’s Next
House Speaker Paul Renner, the Republican who has represented Palm Coast at the Legislature for the last eight years, spoke for the first time at length about the record $150 million in appropriations he helped steer toward Flagler County while boasting of a successful session that increased money “across the board” for roads, schools, health care and green spaces. But he remained mum about his future as his term-limited tenure ends this year.
Flagler Beach Commission Authorizes Up to $22 Million in Loans for Pier Demolition and Reconstruction
The Flagler Beach City Commission Thursday unanimously approved a measure authorizing the city administration to temporarily borrow money internally for pier demolition, design and reconstruction costs now estimated to be $18 million. The debt would be repaid by a tax-exempt financing note, itself to be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency dollars.
City Rep Theatre’s ‘Vinegar Tom’ Explores the Psychology of Witch-Finding
“ ‘Vinegar Tom’ uses the hunt for witches in the 17th century as a tool to investigate the subjugation of women in a male-dominated society,” says City Rep director John Sbordone. “The lessons of the past are reflected in many aspects of our own society.”
Census Bureau: Flagler County’s Population Was 131,500 Last July, an Increase of 16,000 in Three Years
Flagler County is again among the faster-growing counties in the nation, but not among the fastest. The county added 16,000 residents between 2020 and 2023, a 14 percent increase beginning to resemble the population surge of the early 2000s that was halted by the housing crash. Put another way: the county has grown by a population equivalent to more than three times the size of Flagler Beach in that brief span. Just since 2010, the county has grown by 40,000 people.
Houston Had a Problem. Flagler Sheriff’s Deputies Solved It: Suspected Armed Robber Arrested in Palm Coast
Asdrubal Rios Rodriguez, 35, was arrested amid a swarm of deputies, Glocks and rifles drawn, Tuesday on Palm Coast Parkway after authorities received an advisory from Houston police that the Tahoe Rodriguez was driving was connected with an armed robbery at a jewelry store. Some $79,000 in cash and several pieces of gold jewelry were found in the Tahoe.
After Torrent of Drainage Complaints, Only 2 Have Applied for Palm Coast’s New Advisory Committee So Far
Considering the throngs of complaints about drainage problems caused by new construction and the way they upended city priorities, it would not have been unreasonable for the council to expect that there’d be a flood of applicants to serve on the newly created Residential Drainage Citizens Advisory Committee meant to explore solutions. Three weeks into the application process, it hasn’t happened yet. Only two people have applied.
Wrongfully Arrested Migrant To Be Freed on Immigration Bond as Civil Rights Suit Is Filed Against St. Johns Sheriff
Virgilio Aguilar Mendez, the Guatemalan migrant who had been wrongfully arrested outside his motel in St. Johns County last May and charged with manslaughter after the sudden death by heart attack of his arresting deputy, is to be released from federal custody on an immigration bond this week. On Tuesday, one of his attorneys filed an amended federal lawsuit accusing St. Johns County Sheriff Robert Hardwick of violating Mendez’s civil rights.
Thieving Trio Leads Cops on Chase From Target Shopping Center Before Crashing into Retention Pond
A thieving trio wanted on numerous warrants from other counties or on probation allegedly got away with $1,837 worth of merchandise from two Palm Coast businesses before leading police on a chase along State Road 100 and crashing into a retention pond near the intersection with I-95 Tuesday afternoon.
As DeSantis Crows, Opponents of ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Law Say Settlement Rectifies Some of the Damage
Gov. Ron DeSantis was quick out the door with a claim that a settlement in a legal challenge to his Parental Rights in Education Act— or Don’t Say Gay — vindicated his efforts “to keep radical gender and sexual ideology out of the classrooms of public-school children.” In fact, the settlement agreement’s terms also limit enforcement of that law which the governor pushed through the Legislature two years ago to bar public school instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity.
Imagine 2050: Residents Fear Small-Town Tranquility Is History as City Plans for Its Long-Term Future
Preserve the city’s greenery, temper growth, manage roads, bring in more businesses and arts and culture choices: those are some of the major themes gathered from thousands of interactions with Palm Coast residents and synthesized for the Palm Coast City Council today as it heard a mid-point update in its year-long rewrite of the city’s Comprehensive Plan, the long-term blueprint for growth and how the city imagines itself at half century.
Rights-Of-Way Ban on Realtor or Any Signs Will Remain as Palm Coast Moves to Adopt New Ordinance
Nine years after its attorney said it would have to change its sign ordinance to comply with a new Supreme Court ruling, the Palm Coast City Council appears ready to adopt those new rules and maintain a long-standing ban on Realtor or other signs in rights-of-way, except for government signs.
Legal Or Not, Only Immigrants Can Save America
The United States avoided a recession largely because of a surge in immigration, and its economic output is expected to be $7 trillion higher over the next 10 years largely because of immigration–legal or not: the Congressional Budget Office doesn’t distinguish between the two. As native-born fertility declines and Americans age, the country cannot afford to close its borders. Those immigrants at the border aren’t an invasion. They’re not a crisis. They’re a lifeline: theirs and ours.
Defamation Revamp, Flag Bans, Limits on Local Tax Authority, ‘Unborn Child’ Bill All Dead Issues for Now
When Florida lawmakers went home after ending the 2024 legislative session Friday, they left behind hundreds of bills that did not pass, including a bill that would have allowed public figures easily to sue journalists, one that would have banned the flying of certain flags on public property, a proposal to lower the minimum age to buy rifles, and one that would have made it harder for local governments to raise property taxes.
Flagler County’s Unemployment, at 4.1%, Registers Second-Highest Total of Unemployed in Over 2 Years
Flagler County’s unemployment rate again crossed the 4 percent threshold, for the fourth time in six months, registering at a not-seasonally adjusted 4.1 percent in January, up from 3.7 percent in December and 3.6 percent a year ago. The more telling average of the last 12 months was 3.7 percent, compared to 3.3 percent for the previous 12 months, underscoring a small but perceptive trend upward.
To An Increasingly Hysterical Right, Women and Their Bodies Are a Danger To the Republic
What’s America’s biggest problem? Not catastrophic climate change; not income inequality; not systemic racism. It’s women. OK, also communists. They’re everywhere, but the Florida Legislature means to nip that in the bud. But even the threat of a worker’s revolt pales in comparison to the Woman Problem. To the increasingly hysterical Right, women — and their unruly bodies — are a danger to the Republic.
As Supreme Court Takes on Florida Law Forcing Social Media’s Hand, Maybe It’s Time to Reinterpret the First Amendment
Florida is in the middle of an epic legal battle over concepts of free speech, press freedom and unimpeded commerce. It’s a clash between internet publishers, who want the government to leave them alone, and Republican leaders who insist that social media platforms are too powerful to be run by giant, faceless corporations that can — and do — impose their tastes on all of us.
Flagler County and Cities Net Record $151 Million of Half Billion Requested as Budget Heads to DeSantis
The budget includes $151 million in appropriations for Flagler County, Palm Coast, Flagler Beach and Bunnell, a record besting last year’s haul by about $45 million. Palm Coast’s future, western expansion drew $80 million for the loop road the city is planning, but existing residents’ needs for a better Old Kings Road were stiffed. Flagler County is facing a funding cliff next year as Paul Renner and Travis Hutson will be gone.
Five 11-Year-Old Indian Trails Students and Community Problem Solvers Experience Alzheimer’s ‘Through Their Eyes’
Five Indian Trails Middle School sixth graders–Anabella Glasco, Anthony Demaio, Katelyn Castello, MacKenzie MacDonald and Priya Vargas–put themselves through experiences replicating Alzheimer’s disease and interviewed dementia patients as they developed a Community Problem Solvers project called “Through Their Eyes.” The team, one of several from Flagler County, is showcasing its project in state competition this weekend in Orlando.
‘Reading Is My Passion’ Sums Up Read Across Flagler Literacy Celebration Bookmarked by Media Specialists
Read Across Flagler Literacy Night at Palm Coast’s Town Center was as much a celebration of reading as it was of the school district’s media specialists who, pound for pound, have been the single-most besieged group of professionals in the district in the last couple of years of book bans, disrespect and ignorant rhetoric from the very school board members who should be championing them.
Renner Power: Lawmakers Curb Local Regulations of Vacation Rentals, But Protect Flagler’s Ordinance With Carve-Out
The bill would preempt regulation of vacation rentals to the state while allowing local governments to have short-term rental registration programs that meet certain parameters. The bill would “grandfather” in regulations adopted by counties before 2016. During floor debate Thursday, Senate sponsor Nick DiCeglie, R-Indian Rocks Beach, said the exception applies to Flagler County — home to House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast — and Broward County.
‘Long Road Ahead’ for Flagler Sheriff’s Deputy Benjamin Stamps After Severe Motorcycle Crash on I-95
For Flagler County Sheriff’s deputy Benjamin Stamps, it’s going to be “a fairly long road to recovery” after his motorcycle crash Tuesday morning on I-95, as Stamps was riding the emergency lane to investigate a possible incident ahead that had slowed traffic to a crawl, Sheriff Rick Staly said on Wednesday.
After DeSantis Veto, Lawmakers Pass Watered-Down Social Media Ban Awash in Loopholes
The bill, in part, would prevent children under age 16 from opening social-media accounts — though it would allow parents to give consent for 14- and 15-year-olds to have accounts. Children under 14 could not open accounts, but the revamped plan does not include age-verification requirements, making the ban moot but for the state’s vague threat of lawsuits.
Bomb Squad Explodes Suspicious Bundle of 40 Palm Coast Observers After Delivery Misfire at Courthouse
A suspicious package found at a door of the courthouse this morning, before the day’s proceedings began, forced a lockdown of the building and restricted access to law enforcement. The St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office’s bomb squad has been summoned, leaving the courthouse empty for now. No one had to be evacuated from the building since no one had gone in yet. But three judges were set for hearings at 8:30 and 9.
Council Votes 4-1 to Keep Current Palm Coast Water and Sewer Rates While Raising Development Fees 30%
As it had signaled two weeks ago, the Palm Coast City Council voted against a water and sewer rate increase, choosing instead to limit increases to development impact fees, the one-time fee builders pay on new construction to defray the cost of new residents and businesses on the city’s infrastructure. Impact fees will increase from a combined $9,435 for water and sewer hook-ups to $12,221 by 2028, a 30 percent increase. The city administration had recommended an 18 percent base and usage rate increase over four years.
Palm Coast Opts for St. Augustine’s Douglas Law Firm as Replacement for City Attorney, at $30,000 a Month
Its 17-year relationship with the same law firm ending, not of its own choice, the Palm Coast City Council on Tuesday unanimously opted to negotiate a contract with the Douglas Law Firm of St. Augustine, a 12-attorney firm established 10 years ago, with offices in several northeast Florida counties but just now expanding to Flagler Beach. Douglas is proposing a $30,000-a-month fee, or 120 hours of work at $250 an hour. Extra hours are billed additionally.
Sally Hunt and Christy Chong Suggest Locking School Board Meeting Doors for Security and ‘Buzzing’ In People
Sally Hunt made her evasive comment during a workshop after Board member Cheryl Massaro proposed that the board reevaluate the need for a $48-an-hour school resource deputy at each of its workshops. Hunt and Board member Christy Chong suggested locking the board room door during meetings, until they were told the meetings had to be kept accessible to the public at all times.
A1A May Lose Its Name, at $1,800 a Sign, as It’ll Become Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway By August
Lawmakers approved legislation (HB 91) to rechristen all 340 miles of State Road A1A as “Jimmy Buffett Highway” from its tip in Ferdinand Beach to Mile Marker 0 in Key West. The change affects signs in 13 counties, including Flagler County. It won’t be chap: a legislative analysis puts the cost to the Department of Transportation at $1,800 for each pair of signs at any given location ($900 for each sign in each direction).
Seniority Pork: Hutson Filed Staggering $475 Million in Requests for Flagler, Including $309 Million for Palm Coast
Outdoing last year’s requests by far, Hutson filed 34 special funding requests on behalf of Flagler County governments and agencies, totaling a staggering $475.8 million–or 0.4 percent of the size of the current state budget. Seven of the requests are for Flagler County government, totaling $92.5 million. Fourteen requests were for Palm Coast, totaling a third of a billion dollars.
Federal Appeals Court Stops DeSantis’s ‘Stop Woke’ Restrictions on Workplace Training Against Bigotry
The workplace-training part of the law listed eight race-related concepts and said that a required training program or other activity that “espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such individual (an employee) to believe any of the following concepts constitutes discrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin.”
Bunnell Brawl Involving Up to 60 People Ends with 6 Arrests as Even Corrections Deputies Are Summoned to Help
A late-night brawl involving 40 to 50 people–and up to 60, according one sheriff’s report–on South Anderson Street in Bunnell Saturday ended with the arrest of four adults and two juveniles, including one, Andrea Armster, 41, on a felony charge of battering a law enforcement officer. The incident involved so many people, and so many law enforcement officers, that detention deputies from the jail had to assist.
County Issues Demolition Order for Old Dixie Motel as Attorney Describes ‘Dilatory Tactics in Bad Faith’
The Flagler County chief building official has issued a demolition order for the long disused Old Dixie Highway motel that, through a succession of opaque owners who promised the moon but delivered only low-orbit cosmetics, has gone from an eyesore to a hazard to a haze of hope and back to an infuriating thorn in the side of Flagler County government.
DeSantis Thinks He’s Abolishing the Homeless by Banning Them from Sight. He’s Wrong.
DeSantis and lawmakers are likely reacting to a shift in the way communities across the U.S. view homelessness from compassion to penalties and restrictions. Unfortunately, but true to form, DeSantis didn’t offer a palette of humane solutions to the homelessness problem. Instead, he spoke of the issue in stark, unsympathetic, self-absorbed terms characterizing homelessness in purely negative terms, blaming them for contributing to the erosion of the quality of life of others lucky to not be sleeping on the street.
Citing Efforts Against ‘Indoctrination,’ House Approves Bill Broadening Censorship in Teacher Prep Courses
The Florida House on Friday passed a measure that supporters say is designed to keep “identity politics” out of teacher preparation programs that lead to educators getting professional certificates — as Democratic members likened the bill to academic censorship.
Tom Joad, the Voice of a Better America, Has Been Silenced
From the Book of Ruth to Eugene Debs to Tom Joad in Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath,” the voice of solidarity spoke a communion with needs and pains greater than one’s own, a willingness not only to walk in the other’s shoes, but to be the shoes–to be the soles–when the other has none. It was once the voice of America. We have lost that voice as blame and judgment have replaced solidarity and grievances about what we think we’re losing snuff out protest on behalf of those not lucky enough to have something to lose.
State Attorney Dismisses Charges Against Virgilio Mendez, 18, Migrant Accused of Manslaughter in Deputy’s Death
The State Attorney’s Office today dropped the charges against Virgilio Mendez, the 18-year-old migrant arrested last May in St. Augustine over a dubious encounter with sheriff’s deputies prompted by nothing apparent, then charged with aggravated manslaughter in the death of one of the deputies, who had died of a heart attack the medical examiner ruled was of natural causes from heart disease. The charges drew widespread public outrage.
Florida House Passes Ban on Homeless Sleeping In Public Despite Added Burdens to Local Governments
The Florida House on Friday approved a controversial proposal that would prevent homeless people from sleeping in public, despite concerns about increased costs for local governments. The Republican-controlled House voted 82-26 along almost-straight party lines to pass the bill (HB 1365), which is backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. It also would make it easier for residents and business owners to challenge local officials over how homelessness is addressed.
No Back-Up Plan: Palm Coast Hip-Hop Artist Devante Collins Is Working for His Big Break
Devante Collins, whose stage name is Devante, The Artist, graduated from Flagler Palm Coast High School in 2015 and has been on a trek to breakthrough as a hip hop artist, writer and producer since in Los Angeles, Columbus, Ohio, Philadelphia and now back in Florida. He performs tonight at a Justice for Hip Hop music festival in Jacksonville, at the Justice Pub at 315 East Bay St.
Palm Coast’s Wishful 20-Field, $93 Million Sports Complex Rests on a Far Future of Dubiously Rosy Speculation
The Palm Coast City Council is embarking on an ambitious plan to explore and perhaps develop and finance, in a private-public partnership, an enormous sports complex on the west side of the yet-undeveloped city. A consultant encouraging the project is projecting rosy figures that would not mortgage tax dollars yet yield ample profits while drawing up to 250,000 athletes and spectators a year. The figures are speculative and do not easily stand up to scrutiny.
More Sound and Fury Than Broad Problems as 3 Residents Complain to City of Ralph Carter Park’s Popularity
When the Palm Coast City Council gets its administration’s latest report on the state of Ralph Carter Park in the R-Section, it’ll have to decide how much of the sound and fury again hemming the popular park is the grousing of a few people signifying nothing or a reflection of a broader problem. Judging from a community meeting the administration hosted at City Hall Wednesday evening, there is no broad problem.
Renner and DeSantis Trying to Ward Off Veto Over Social Media Ban for Children Under-16
With a Friday deadline looming, House Speaker Paul Renner said Wednesday that he and Gov. Ron DeSantis are trying to work out differences on a bill aimed at keeping children under age 16 off social-media platforms. Renner is keeping silent on alternatives.
Ahead of Trial, Lawyer for Man Accused in Murder of Noah Smith Says Interrogation Was Constitutional Violation
Tyrese Patterson is one of three men facing a murder charge in the shooting death of 16-year-old Noah Smith in Bunnell in 2022. In court today, Patterson’s attorney, Tim Pribisco, heatedly sparred with Flagler County Sheriff’s detective Augustin Rodriguez, who was testifying, and just as fiercely argued to Circuit Judge Terence Perkins that an interrogation of Patterson at the county jail by Rodriguez is inadmissible, because Patterson twice directly and indirectly asked about his attorney, only for the interrogation to continue.
‘Three Amigos’ Who Shepherded Flagler Through Covid Return as Vigilante Philanthropists. But Don’t Tell Anyone.
For two years, Dr. Stephen Bickel, then-Health Department chief Bob Snyder and Flagler Broadcasting President David Ayres shepherded Flagler County through the Covid pandemic on WNZF’s airwaves. The three have teamed up again as a group that calls itself Vigilante Philanthropy, but they’d prefer to do their work outside the limelight.
Florida Lawmakers Back Modest Reparations for Dozier School’s Black Victims of Rampant Abuse
The Florida Senate measure would create a $20 million “Dozier School for Boys and Okeechobee School Victim Compensation Program” to compensate “living persons who were confined” to Dozier or the Okeechobee School, another reform school, between 1940 and 1975 and “who were subjected to mental, physical, or sexual abuse perpetrated by school personnel.”
SR100 Pedestrian ‘Faith’ Bridge Gets Somewhere After All: To an Award, But Ex-County Engineer Is Snubbed
The Flagler Greenways Pedestrian Bridge over State Road 100 earned the “National Recognition Award” from American Council of Engineering Companies in the 2024 Engineering Excellence Awards. The award will go to Kisinger Campo and Associates, the engineering company that designed the bridge for the county. At the county, the bridge was overseen by engineer Faith al-Khatib, whom the county unceremoniously pushed out last year.
Palm Coast Searches for Its New Attorney In the Open. School Board Chooses Secrecy.
The Palm Coast City Council and the Flagler County School Board are searching for new attorneys to represent them in two very different ways. The council is conducting its search entirely in the open, ensuring that all related documents are public, providing them on request, and interviewing the firms in open forum. The school board, in contrast with its own precedents and with all other local governments, possibly in violation of law, is not.
Snuffed Out for 4 Years, Commission Debate Continues to Smolder Over July 4 Fireworks in Flagler Beach
It’s as if a stash of July 4 fireworks keeps smoldering somewhere under Flagler Beach, looking for a burst skyward–and getting snuffed out at every turn. Some Flagler Beach city commissioners and members of the business community are not happy with the uncertainty. So the commission will hold a workshop on the matter for still more talk, to hear from the public and to figure out of fireworks could return to the pier for the first time in five years come July 4.
GOP Lawmakers Recommend Co-Founder of Moms for Liberty, an Extremist Group, for Ethics Job
Republican lawmakers in a Senate hearing Monday recommended Tina Descovich, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, cited by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-government extremist group, for an appointment for the Florida Commission on Ethics. The full Senate must approve the executive appointment.
Christopher Lemke, Who Threatened Neighbors With a Gun on July 4, Avoids Jail Or Felony Conviction
Christopher Lemke, 70, threatened to shoot his neighbor’s family last July 4 in Palm Coast’s R-Section as he pointed a laser-equipped firearm at several people, including a pregnant woman. He was sentenced Friday to 48 months on probation, but will not be adjudicated a felon. Still, he will have some of the same consequences, among them a lifetime ban on owning or possessing guns.