Jane Mealy Exits Flagler Beach Dais After 19 Years, Cunningham Is Sworn-In and Sherman Named Chair

There was the pledge, there was the moment of silence, and they approved the March 6 workshop minutes as their first order of business. At least for those opening moments of the Flagler Beach City Commission Thursday evening, it was all routine. But it wasn’t, as a full-house audience well knew.

The end of a commissioner’s 19-year tenure couldn’t possibly be, least of all a commissioner like Jane Mealy. She had been the commission’s unrivaled workhorse and its sharpest study long before successive commissioners mostly modeled themselves after her, whether they knew it or not.




Mealy is the reason the Flagler Beach City Commission, unique among local governments, has through so many years of turbulence on other boards remained the most diverse, independent and non-ideological board in local politics, and as such, as the most effectively responsive to its constituents. The rookies on the scrambling Palm Coast City Council could learn a few tips by looking up rather than down to their Intracoastal neighbor.

Mealy’s departure doesn’t put that at risk. But like the departure last November of fellow-Flagler Beach resident Colleen Conklin from the School Board after 24 years of usually being its sanest and most knowledgeable voice, Mealy’s absence opens a hole in the government’s institutional memory on the eve of a city centennial framed by the remaking of downtown, the pier and the beach. Only Mealy had seen the genesis of that ecological and urban revolution–well, Mealy and some key members of a staff that remain in place and anchor their government even better than Mealy, such as City Clerk Penny Overstreet and City Attorney Drew Smith.

When Smith read the sine die ordinance 25-24 at the opening of the meeting yesterday–the ordinance ending the term of the current commission, Commissioner Rick Belhumeur made a motion to approve, then caught himself: “Jane, why don’t you get a motion?” And so she made her next-to-last last motion. “Thank you, commissioner,” she told her old rival, voting yes. She then made the motion to adjourn. That was it, almost.




Mayor Patti King and the staff of course had all sorts of farewells for Mealy before a roomful of her supporters and friends–cops, firefighters, city staffers, her friends from the Flagler Woman’s Club, her other personal friends. Her brother was watching online from another coast. “That made me feel good,” Mealy said this morning, groggy from the grief of a loss she had not expected, that even John Cunningham, who replaced her, had not quite expected.

There’d been no change in Mealy’s politics, her strenuous work habits or her advocacy on the city’s behalf on or off the commission. More than any of her colleagues, she continued to be the surest presence at any local government meeting where Flagler Beach issues had a share of the agenda, including last Wednesday’s joint government meeting on beach management. She’d missed the rare meeting over a health setback last year but quickly returned, if with a portable tank of oxygen since then attached to her. She may have lost a step physically but not in any other way. Nevertheless she was probably punished for the mere appearance rather than the fact of frailty.

So the loss has naturally been difficult. “It’s kind of like the stages of grief–upset, angry, I don’t know,” she said this morning. But the ending had its solace.  “That made me feel good,” she said of the full room and the two standing ovation. (Not that Cunningham and the re-elected James Sherman didn’t have their families and friends too.)




“I still live here, I’m not moving. Once I get over the initial feelings I’ll find my place in the city again,” Mealy said. Just don’t call on her for any advisory roles on city boards, though she will be included in all city centennial activities ahead. “Right now I’m not interested in anything,” she said. “I’ll still be with the Woman’s Club and the University Women, do good for the community that way, help out with the feeding of people at Christmas and Thanksgiving, like I always did, but as far as a position with the city right now, no. But again, I could change my feelings and we’ll see what happens down the road. I’m not going away.”

Cunningham was soon seated, initially to the right of Scott Spradley, who was himself in the final minutes of his year-long chairmanship. Spradley congratulated Sherman on his re-election and welcomed Cunningham before Smith administered the oath to each, Sherman holding the hand of his young daughter. Spradley last year had named Sherman for the chairmanship. Sherman declined. He asked this time who was not interested in being named chair. Cunningham and Commissioner Eric Cooley opted out. That left Spradley, Sherman and Belhumeur, who to his chagrin has been overlooked more than once despite his seniority,

Rather than holding repetitive votes, Spradley, ever the conciliator, suggested conducting the election the way commissioners vote for appointments to advisory boards. Commissioners agreed.




“This may be my last year, my last opportunity to be chair,” Belhumeur told his colleagues, reminding them he’d been passed over previously. He was passed over again as Sherman got the nod, after two rounds of balloting: he’d been tied with Sherman on the first, then the tie was broken in Sherman’s favor. ( Belhumeur was named vice chair. Sherman, who has spoken of this three-year term as his last, took his seat at the center of the dais, with Cunningham to his right and Belhumeur to his left. (See the ballots here, here and here.)

Then it was on to what turned into a meeting that went past the four-hour mark.