At Chamber’s Future of Flagler Forum, Rousing Cheer for Years Ahead from City, County and School Leaders

State of the city, state of the county, state of the state addresses are familiar to most, but in every case the event is focused on one city, one county, and so on. 

Today, the Palm Coast-Flagler Regional Chamber of Commerce gave a crowd of over 100 people the chance to hear the state of Flagler County’s cities, county and school board in less than 60 minutes, presented in rapid, compelling, and at times rousing succession by men and women more knowledgeable, less vapid and generally more intelligent than the elected officials who hire them: city and county managers and the school superintendent. 




The event was billed as the Future of Flagler Forum 2024. The speeches had a lot more to do with recent achievements than future plans, but each speaker bridged his or her agency’s showcase projects to an inevitably bright future, whether it’s the new pier about to be built in Flagler Beach, the loop road known as Commerce Parkway trenching through Bunnell’s undiscovered country, or Palm Coast’s expanding sewer plants, which will paradoxically make one sort of evacuation more efficient while inviting a continuing invasion of new residents. 

Hardly a single fact spoken, a single project, a single figure was unfamiliar to anyone who cursorily reads the press: who still doesn’t know about the 100-bed, $18 million Margaritaville hotel opening in Flagler Beach next summer, or the $20 million, 800-foot concrete pier about to replace the old ruin hobbling into the waves there? Who doesn’t know that the school district offers innumerable programs that bulk up students’ profiles far beyond a mere high school degree? (As it turns out, half the district’s students seem not to know.)  Who doesn’t know that the county’s bond rating is at its best ever, and that quality of life tops every local mission statement? 

But it’s a sign of how scattered and diffuse both press and audiences are nowadays that most of the material the officials presented seemed like news, even to an audience of business leaders, educators and officials who, you’d think, would know it all. Besides, there were the occasional new nuggets, like Palm Coast City Manager Lauren Johnston suggesting that a Chick-Fil-A is about to claim a coop near BJ’s Wholesale Club (the company had a pre-application meeting with the city earlier this month), and Superintendent LaShakia Moore said the school district has 2,342 employees–not, as has often been reported, the 1,600 to 1,700 figure most people are familiar with. 

“Quality of Life,” boomed Howard Holley, the current interim director of the chamber and baritone-in-chief who emceed the event with fluidly expert segues between speakers: he seemed to synthesize each presentation in half a minute while adding a touch of the one thing missing from the speakers’ relentless bullet points: analysis. 




“We’ve talked about that a few times,” Holley said (of quality of life). “I mentioned earlier about economic vitality. But you know, most of us are here because of the quality of life that this place offers. And many people think that growth detracts from the quality of life. And I was wondering if those people who are against growth were in that line at Miller Ale House, or if they have attended or gone into BJ’s, or–I mean, all of the things I don’t think people understand that businesses create and enable quality of life. And I don’t blame them. That’s our fault, and we’re going to fix that.”

Then onto the next speaker. County Administrator Heidi Petito and Palm Coast’s Lauren Johnston let their facts fill their time, leaving personalities and showmanship aside (in contrast with each of their predecessors whose egos some years ago would have kept them from fitting in the same enormous ballroom at the Hammock Beach Club, where this event took place). 

Petito opened a small window into the county’s disappointment at not landing the gargantuan, 1,000-job manufacturing plant that France’s Aura Aero will build next to Daytona Beach airport, after Flagler County was the only other finalist, down from 33 sites. “Unfortunately, it didn’t come here but it was a great opportunity to see where we can strengthen our position and work with our community partners on attracting those businesses here. So more to come on that,” Petito said. 

Johnston somehow made a $240 million sewer plant expansion something to look forward to almost as much as a theme park–though she managed, with deft tact, not to mention the litigation-frothed splash pad at Holland Park in the same breath–and, with Mayor David Alfin a few steps away, delivered the obligatory tribute to the city’s so-called “westward expansion,” which she said “will lead to more economic growth.” 




“I’m going to steal [Bunnell City Manager Alvin] Jackson’s thunder here,” Johnston said. “You always hear him say, it’s a great day in Bunnell, and we’re open for business. Well, guess what? It’s a great day in Palm Coast. We’re open for business, too.” That got applause, though Bunnell City Manager Catherine Robinson was in the audience probably thinking what she has often thought in her few decades as mayor: there goes Palm Coast again, stealing our trademarks. 

By the time Dale Martin, the Flagler Beach city manager, was introduced by Garry Lubi, the former bank executive and chamber chair–who got Martin’s name wrong, calling him Dave–Martin was almost in apologetic mode for the city’s diminutive size, compared to Palm Coast, the county and the school district’s 13,000 students: “We’re going to drop down significantly in scale from Flagler schools and Flagler County, even Palm Coast, and Dr. Jackson and I will talk about small towns,” he said. He  enumerated some of the nuts and bolts churning the city’s economy–the 800 businesses, the people working for local governments, the “cordial and productive discussions with the developer” of Veranda Bay, likely soon to annex into the city and eventually double its size. 

Martin then made a clever point, as if to make his audience think twice about their assumption that Flagler Beach is a small town. He asked for a show of hands from the people who either live in the city (just a few hands) or visit the city (most hands). That was enough to show that Flagler Beach’s population of 5,000 may not be much, but it is burdened by a mainland that makes the small town its playground day in and day out, at times enough to sink the barrier island under perceptible groans from the crush of visitors. 

Then it was Jackson’s turn. Those who know him knew it would not be a speech. It would be a performance–part Elmer Gantry (he’s a preacher, too), part Tony Robbins, and entirely Alvin Jackson. With that much capital, he alone could dare say what his colleagues couldn’t: “We have to be visionaries, we have to dream, and we have to help our elected officials make the right decisions to get us there,” he said (the emphasis was his). In other words, the elected often know not what they do. 




He could get away with that because Robinson is crazy about him. You could see why through his performance today, which he pitched to an audience he had in the palm of his hands, and to the rhythm of a crescendo that ended with this finale of verbal fireworks: “So when we talk about economic vitality, all of us have shared a story this morning that Flagler County is on fire, and that we’re pulsating with life and energy” (he was pulsating right there, body and soul in front of his audience), “where the world will want to say: I want to go to Flagler County, and in particular, to the greatest city in the country.” 

Bunnell, of course. Always Bunnell. He got the most rousing applause of the day. 

“I did tell Alvin earlier that he needs to be a little more energetic,” Holley said with a wry smile. The event hadn’t built-in a cool-down period, so it did the next-best thing: it gathered all the officials on a dais for a brief Q&A before Howard summed things up with a few hints about the chamber (which recently lost its executive director in an unhappy break-up) post-turmoil: “We think we moved forward, but we’re not where we want to be, and we still have further to go. And I think feedback is the breakfast of champions, is the way I see that,” Holley said. 

He continued: “What I have found out is that there is the belief that there are multiple organizations that are separate and distinct. And I want to be real quick, there’s only one chamber, okay? And that chamber represents the overall business community. So however you see it, you will see it differently going forward. And what you should see is what we say: the future of your business is our business. That fits so well with what’s happened today and what’s been shared. And if you came in not knowing what you were going to get, I’m sure you should leave here saying, Boy, there’s a lot going on.”

Michael Chiumento, who chairs the chamber board, closed the proceedings as if he and his re-emergent chamber were ushering in Flagler’s Age of Business Aquarius: “When we’re doing good as a community, I believe that most everybody in this room is doing well,” he said. “So instead of looking at our business all the time, we’re asking you all to look out into the community, spread the good word, talk about all the great things. It’s really easy in today’s world with social media to focus on the alleged negative things. But we all in here know that there’s a lot of great things happening, and these people here are leading us into the future, are securing us and our families for the next generation that come through.” He pointed to the panel of managers, administrators and the superintendent–as appreciative an endorsement of government as has ever been heard from a local chamber.

“So go out into the world,” Chiumento continued. “Speak kindly to each other, speak kindly about economic development, business growth, and we’ll all end up where we know we’re going to be, in an even better community.”