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.
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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.