Divider. Coward. Bully. Dictator: 4 Palm Coast City Council Members on Mayor Mike Norris, In Their Own Words

Last Updated: 2:15 p.m.

The Palm Coast City Council late Tuesday afternoon voted 4-0 to censure Mike Norris and to reflect the council’s no-confidence in the mayor. The council also voted 4-0 to forward a complaint to the Florida Ethics Commission based on the independent investigation that found Norris violated the city charter by unilaterally and behind closed doors demanding the resignation of Acting City Manager Lauren Johnston and Chief of Staff Jason DeLorenzo, without the council’s knowledge. The investigation found numerous additional matters of concern about Norris’s conduct.

On Tuesday, each of the four council members explained his or her vote in at times lengthy statements following Council member Charlie Gambaro’s motions to censure and to send a letter to the governor requesting that Norris be removed. The second motion was later amended to just sending a complaint to the Ethics Commission for now. The motions are unprecedented in Palm Coast’s 25-year history. 




The council members’ statements follow. They have been lightly edited to remove repetitions or verbal tics and fillers. Video of the segment is at the foot of the article. 

Norris was not at the meeting Tuesday. Theresa Pontieri, as vice mayor, chaired the meeting. He has not returned calls or texts by anyone at City Hall or the media. City Hall had still not heard from him as of Wednesday noon, but he has been active on his email account, cancelling meetings with constituents scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, and telling them that the meetings would be rescheduled, which suggests he remains on the job. 

Shortly after this article published, Norris posted a sepia-toned, western-style self-portrait showing him in a “WANTED” poster, “for standing up to the swamp of Palm Coast.” He wrote a few words: “Moratorium. There, I said the bad word again. I will keep fighting for the people of Palm Coast, no matter what!” There is no mention of the investigation, its findings or the council’s votes on Norris.

Council member Charles Gambaro

The accusations that led to the investigation have been substantiated and are extremely concerning, especially the substantiated finding of malfeasance. And I’m truly disappointed with the mayor’s behavior, the wild accusations against this council, members of our city staff, which has been clearly documented, and members of our community, without any facts supporting his claims. Some examples of these were the Flagler Buzz interview, where he gave all of us the middle finger, the State of the City address, which was an embarrassment, and other many situations.

His insistence on continuing to bring up past, resolved issues in a negative fashion, versus looking towards the future in a collaborative manner with this council and our residents, is not in anyone’s definition of executive or strategic leadership. In my assessment, in a very short amount of time in office, the mayor has managed to divide this council, divide our community, and tarnish the image of this great city.

Council member Ty Miller

I was very disappointed by the findings into the mayor. The findings outline repeat violations of the city charter, not just once or twice, but multiple times, a pattern of inappropriate and profane behavior, and an overall disregard for the responsibilities of his office.




As a veteran specifically, I was trained to lead by example. I believe the Marine Corps is kind of the best university in the world for leadership, and I was taught to conduct myself in a manner above reproach, which means that you try to stay above any level of scrutiny, because you know that that’s possible. Respect isn’t demanded in leadership. It’s earned through integrity, accountability and how you treat others. I believe the mayor’s actions fail that standard multiple times. He’s been warned. It’s been documented that he was exceeding the city charter, pressuring staff to resign, interfering with staff operations in creating a hostile work environment, and he was warned that this was both unprofessional and unlawful per the city charter.

These are not misunderstandings of what the rules are, and that ‘I accidentally broke them.’ He knew the rules. Did it anyways. He said he was going to do it before he was elected. He was elected. He attempted to do it on multiple occasions, was warned that it was a violation of the law, and did it anyways. The pattern of deny, admit, justify, blame others: That’s not leadership. That’s evasion. If any city employee was judged by the standards, they would have been terminated, plain and simple. That would not be tolerated in a normal workplace.

No one is above the law, not even the mayor of Palm Coast. We deserve leadership and respect, character and integrity, not ego or intimidation. So part of my problem with the entire thing is that when these [complaints] were brought, the first answer was: well, a previous City Council violated the charters so I can. The second answer was: Well, I was frustrated, as if none of us are ever frustrated and no other people in this city are frustrated. Still not a valid reason to break the charter. Third reasoning was: well, I intended to come to you after the fact and ask for your consent. And then finally, apparently in a moment of clarity, it was: well, I didn’t even do it at all.

Those were the four things that happened in that moment on that evening [when Norris was confronted with the report that he had demanded the top executives’ resignation] . So it wasn’t deny. It was just justify everything. And then we’ve spent the last month listening to conspiracy. It’s because I motion for certain things. Well, quite frankly, the vice mayor’s motioned for the sa same things several times over the last couple years, and nothing like this has happened, perhaps because the Vice Mayor hasn’t been walking around City Hall, violating the charter, intimidating staff, using profanity, making judgments about people’s appearance in an unprofessional manner. Maybe that’s the reason why.




Maybe sometimes things happen because you caused them to happen, and maybe sometimes you’re responsible for your own actions and not blame other people. So in my opinion, I wholly support this. I think that the no-confidence and censure is the only real level of authority we have as a city council to exact any punishment for this violation. And I would advocate that allowing someone to do this only erodes any other council person’s power. That basically says that your position should not exist. If we don’t act in some way, then the result will be that any council member can just violate the Charter at any time, and we can continue onwards without any punishment. There’s no punishment for the misdeeds. Then anybody can do it.

So I think I agree that we should confirm this vote of no confidence, as well as the censure and move forward. I think it’s vital to our city to get back to doing the work of the city instead of participating in a side show that’s been occurring for several months now. Obviously, I’m assuming the mayor is okay and there’s no problems. And the reason he’s not here is because he doesn’t want to be here, and he chooses to not be here. But we’ve seen that the mayor has not been doing the business of the city since this started. And so if he’s not doing that, what is he doing? Why is he here?

Council member Dave Sullivan

As the new person here, I have read the report, it came to me last night, and I agree with the comments. I wasn’t as involved as the rest of the council has been, but it’s clear that I look at it as the difference between the mayor and us is, he has that title–mayor. He’s supposed to be kind of the front person for the city. He gets one vote, like all of us. But the little difference is, he gets elected citywide for the job, but he’s not doing that job. He’s actually having a negative impact on Palm Coast right now, not a positive impact, and he doesn’t seem to understand what his role, proper role, should be.

I think what we have here is a coarse bully, and that’s the way I describe him. He’s acting as a bully. And usually that’s the sign of somebody who has an inferiority complex and has to kind of strike out to show leadership, or what he thinks should be leadership. So I think there is a problem. I think he has demonstrated it over and over, and therefore I have no problem in supporting this particular motion.

Vice Mayor Theresa Pontieri

Since this all began, I have been very silent on the whole situation. I wanted to wait for the findings of the investigation before I cast any aspersion or judgments, or really, before I formulated any type of opinion from a factual standpoint. And I was hoping that the investigation would ferret out, kind of what you were alluding to, to an extent, Councilman Sullivan was that maybe there’s a lack of understanding, and that some of the things that were said and done were because of a coarse sense of humor, or just kind of rookie mistakes, things of that nature.




And unfortunately, what the investigation shows is that that is not the case. Mayor Norris took repeated actions that are in blatant contradiction to what our charter allows for, and I have a grave concern about that, because to the points made up here already, if we allow this behavior now from our mayor, then what will we allow in the future? And so from that standpoint, I have some grave concerns. When the media reached out to me last night and asked me what my opinions were on the findings of the report, I said I am truly sad for this city, and that is a genuine–that was my very first, gut-instinct response. I am sad for the city, because this is not good for the city of Palm Coast.

We’ve already seen its effect on the city manager search. I guarantee you, people looking from the outside in, who are looking at possibly investing in our community, moving their business to our community, moving their families to our community, these are not things that an investor in the future of Palm Coast wants to see. They want to see stability, they want to see predictability. This type of behavior promotes neither of those things.

One of the things that Mayor Norris has continued to say is: “I’m going to do what’s best for the city of Palm Coast.” We’ve heard him say it numerous times, and maybe he genuinely thought at one point that the actions that he was taking were in the best interest of the city of Palm Coast. But I have to say that after being told by city attorney, per the investigation findings, “mayor, you can’t do that, that’s in violation of the charter, you need to take this to the board. You need to get consensus for these types of things.” Now we’re getting out of the realm of maybe somebody trying to do what they felt was in the best interest of the city, and now just doing whatever they want in contravention to how our rules and procedures mandate you’re supposed to do things. That’s a very, I think, objective analysis of what the report said.

Now getting into my opinion of how we need to move forward, and why I don’t think that this is what the voters of Palm Coast genuinely voted for. The voters of Palm Coast did not vote for a dictator. The voters of Palm Coast did not vote for a mayor to come in and disregard the rules and the procedures set out in the city charter and not want to work with the board as a governing body, because that’s what we are. We are a governing body and a republic. We are not part of a dictatorship. If we are in a strong-mayor system, and the mayor had the ability to take certain actions unilaterally, this would not be a conversation. But that’s not the system that we’re in, and somebody who doesn’t mind that is a problem.




If any one of us did the actions that the mayor took, I would expect the same response. And I think when we look at the way we govern from up here, everything has to be brought to this dais. If we have an issue, it gets brought to the diocese. We get consensus from each other to move forward. If there’s an issue that we see, then we bring it up at the dais and we say, Do I have consensus to look further into this? That is what a governing body does. It provides transparency and lets the public know what we’re looking into. It’s how we should operate as a responsible governing body.

His actions have been irresponsible. They have not been in comport with what we’re supposed to be doing as that governing body. And I have a really big issue with that, because there have been plenty of times during city manager meetings when I said, Man, I really want to do this or that. And you know what the response always is? Great. Bring it up during comments and get consensus from the board. And you know what I do? I bring it up here and I get consensus from the board, because that’s my job.

I feel that what the mayor has done is the act of a coward. If you want to, rather than bring issues to this board and discuss them in a public forum with the rest of us, that is what a leader does. That’s what the member of a governing body does, to call secret meetings where you’re going to try to unilaterally get somebody to resign, which is just a euphemism for fire, and preface the conversation with “this is a one-way conversation,” I think that’s the act of a coward. To me that’s equivalent to a keyboard tough guy sitting on their computer behind a Facebook profile making comments on something and not coming to city council, standing at the podium and trying to resolve things with your council.

So I have a problem. I don’t think that the actions that have been taken actually benefit the city. I was really tasking myself in the middle of the night last night, this kept me up thinking, what has the mayor done? Because he’s continued to say: I’m going to do what’s in the best interest of the city. What have his actions actually done for the city? Is he doing good work for the city? Because at the end of the day, that’s the question: Is he doing the job? Is he able to get things across the finish line for the city? And I don’t think the answer is yes. I haven’t seen what these actions have done to improve the city of Palm Coast and to benefit our voters and our residents, and I have a problem with that.




From a human element, I’m sorry to the people who have endured some of this treatment. It’s not fair, and I was pretty sickened to see some of the things that were said to certain members of our staff and to some of our residents. For that, I apologize on behalf of this board.

I do want to say that I have a problem with [Norris’s] future ability to perhaps be able to do the job. I know that the mayor has not had his standing meetings with [the] city manager over the last month. That’s a problem. The state of the city was rough. It’s my understanding that we all kind of had a script, or a program that we were supposed to abide by for the state of the city, as far as formalities and things like that. And that wasn’t followed. There was quite the introduction from the mayor, and then I had to follow that, and that was very hard, and city manager had to follow that, and I can’t imagine that that was easy.

Then today we come here, and I hope that the mayor is okay. I hope that from a safety perspective, there’s nothing wrong with him, and that he did not show up today simply because this investigation came out, and perhaps he didn’t want to show up. But that affects people, because I didn’t get a heads up, and so I’m thrown into, well, you’ve got to run the meeting, and that’s fine. As vice mayor, that’s what I signed up to do. But I say all this to say there’s an inability, I feel, to effectively do the job if we don’t get past this somehow. And so I have a concern there.

The last thing I’ll say is there’s been repeated allegations and repeated statements on social media that this has been a witch hunt, and I have a really big problem with that. I’m feeling myself getting hot, because not only does that impugn the integrity of the people who have had to endure some of this treatment. If you think it is easy to go to HR with an HR report as an employee, you are sadly mistaken. It is very hard. I have been a boss, and I have been an employee, and to go to HR for any HR issues is not an easy task. There are fears of retaliation. You feel weak. It’s not something that’s fun, I can guarantee you. I know it is not something that our staff members wanted to do. So for them to bring forward these allegations and then be told that these are “trumped up HR charges,” is abysmal. That is not the behavior of a leader.

For those who are on social media saying this is a witch hunt because the mayor said during State of the City that these are trumped up HR charges, which now, via this investigation report and these findings we know is not true, is quite disturbing. To Councilman Miller’s point, twice from this dais, since I’ve been on this board, I’ve moved for a moratorium for different reasons, and trumped up HR charges haven’t been filed against me. I have probably cost developers in this community millions of dollars. Now I’ve done it legally [through] my votes. I’ve made legal votes that have affected their bottom line, and they didn’t write a report about me. Knock on wood.

There are certain members of this community, from a developer and builder standpoint, that have openly criticized me for not voting for density increases and zoning variances and things like that, because it doesn’t allow them to increase residential density. And I’m not looking at an investigation of this nature. So to say that this was done in retaliation for those things is completely unfounded.

I agree that something needs to be done. My hesitancy with doing it now, prior to the investigator coming forth and presenting the findings is, he’s also supposed to present recommendations of how we move forward. I don’t know what all those recommendations look like. I still would like the investigator to come here and present those to us so I understand the motion conceptually. I support some type of reprimand. But I don’t know what that bevy of options looks like. And I don’t know what the likelihood of sending a letter to the governor–I don’t know what that end game looks like. I don’t know if there would actually be real action the governor would take. And so if it’s going to be an act of futility, I don’t know if it’s worth it, just because it’s just another thing that’s not good for our city.