Flagler County Emergency Management and other first responders are investigating a tornado touching down in Palm Coast’s B Section around 4:45 this morning, leaving a trail of downed trees, downed power lines, damaged roofs, fencing and power losses. There are no reports of injuries.
Flagler
Don O’Brien Said to Consider Dropping Out of House Race, Pam Richardson Runs for County Commission
Darryl Boyer, one of three Republican candidates in the primary for the state House seat that Paul Renner is relinquishing in 2024, said today that Donald O’Brien, one of the other two competitors for that seat, told him he was likely dropping out of the race. At the same time, Pam Richardson, the Realtor-broker, has joined the Republican primary race for O’Brien’s Commission seat, also contested by Ed Danko and Victor Barbosa.
Flagler’s Family Life Center Nets $26,000 from Creekside Festival Donation as 10,000 Turn Out
Last weekend’s edition of the Creekside Music and Arts Festival at Princess Place Preserve made up for last year’s, when Hurricane Ian made the park impassable and forced the event to move to the Agriculture Museum. The two-day event drew 10,000 people and netted the Family Life center a $26,000 donation from Flagler Broadcasting, which organized the event.
Judge Orders One Final Mediation in Hopes of Averting Trial in Captain’s BBQ Suit Against County
The Flagler County Commission met behind closed doors for the first time in over three years this morning to discuss a possible settlement of the four-year-old lawsuit by Captain’s BBQ at Bings Landing. The judge in the case ordered the two sides again to go to mediation to avoid a January trial. Mediation and an attempted settlement that made significant concessions to Captain’s in 2020 failed as commissioners rejected the proposal.
State Attorney’s Jason Lewis, Near-Invincible Prosecutor, Wins 7th Judicial Circuit’s Lifetime Achievement Award
Assistant State Attorney Jason Lewis, a ferocious, annihilating prosecutor who’s as genial outside the courtroom as he is fearsome inside it, since 2014 has managed the Flagler outpost of the State Attorney’s Office and oversees its homicide attorneys in the four-county Seventh Judicial Circuit.
Palm Coast Issued Development Orders for 4,138 Homes This Year Alone, and Has 13,361 ‘in Pipeline’
While City Council member Theresa Ponstieri significantly overstated the actual number of homes the council approved this year, there is no question that Palm Coast is growing rapidly, and that Council policy is doing all it can to accelerate that growth, with increasing rumbles from existing residents who think, like Pontieri, that the pace is too rapid.
Bob Snyder, ‘Giant During Covid,’ Steps Down from Flagler County Health Department He Led for 11 Years
Bob Snyder, who’s led the Flagler County Health Department since 2013, was the co-architect of the county’s response to the Covid pandemic and more recently ensured that the department’s funding more directly reflect the county’s population, after decades of imbalance, stepped down and opted for retirement Sunday, six months before he was planning to do so.
When Sisco Deen Reconnected Descendants to the Local Legacies of General Hernández, Bings and MalaCompra
The late Sisco Deen and his wife Gloria played a central role in exhuming history and reconnecting descendants and state historians with the local legacy of General Joseph Hernández, who owned a plantation residence in what became Bings Landing Park and was the first Hispanic in Congress.
At Sisco Deen’s Memorial, Tales of When Jail Saved Him from Dissolution and a Jeep Shook Him Overboard
More than 130 people turned up at Cattleman’s Hall at the Flagler fairgrounds for the Quaker-style memorial and life celebration of Claude Sisco Deen, the veteran, archivist and self-made historian who exhumed much of Flagler County’s documented history and died at 83 on Aug. 31.
Don’t Blame Us Seniors for the Affordability Crisis. Blame Developers.
A Hammock resident rejects the claim that Palm Coast’s and Flagler County’s seniors “contribute least” as they buy up homes, or that they are to blame for the housing affordability crisis. Rather, developers convince your fearless leaders that they cannot make any money unless they cram in as many houses on a property as possible. They convince commissioners to change zoning frequently, for profit.