Military Guy and ‘Defiant’ Candidate Out as Council Narrows City Manager Choices to 2 Experienced Administrators

Passing over military brass or heavy hands, the Palm Coast City Council last night narrowed its choices for city manager to two middle-of-the-road candidates steeped in local government experience: J. David Fraser, who’s managed several cities in the West, and Michael McGlothlin, a former law enforcement investigator and police chief in city management since 2019, most recently in Reddington Shores on the Gulf of Mexico. 

The two candidates will be interviewed in person at City Hall on Nov. 13 for a job that may earn them up to $250,000 a year. Interim City Manager Lauren Johnston’s current salary is $190,000. 

The two finalists emerged from a pool of 112 candidates when the city restarted its search from scratch in April after its previous protracted attempt collapsed as candidate after candidate fled from a council at war with itself: Mayor Mike Norris was suing the city (he lost), undermining the legitimacy of fellow-Council member Charles Gambaro, and fueling public vilification sessions against the council and city staff through a small coterie of loudmouthed gadflies. 

It’s been quieter and much more civil since Norris’s lawsuit failed and Gambaro announced his congressional run, ensuring that Norris won’t have his nemesis two chairs over past November 2026–and may even have a majority friendlier to his designs, as Council member Pontieri announced a run for the County Commission and Council member Dave Sullivan said initially said he would not run again. Sullivan is now vacilliating. 

What that means for the next city manager, should he be hired, is that he will be chosen by a majority that will vanish less than a year after his appointment. 

By Tuesday, the council had culled its candidates to a shortlist of six: Fraser, McGlothlin,  Anthony Schembri, Thomas Thomas, Carl E. Geffken and Norm West. It had asked the six to respond to 10 questions on video, and to write a brief white paper outlining their first-year vision. (See the videos and white papers here.) The city’s Renina Fuller, the human resources director,  conducted internet background searches on the six. The search yielded a few worrisome results. 

“Did we want to talk about derogatory information found on some of the candidates that Miss Fuller was able to bring up before we go down this road?” Gambaro said. He cited Geffken, “fired from his position for being a defiant city administrator and subject to multiple lawsuits. Mr. Thomas was fired from his city manager position for treating his employees unfairly. Those are the two main ones that jumped out at the research that our staff provided.” 

Those issues would end up weighing considerably in the council’s choices after it ranked the six. The idea was for each council member to rank his or her top three candidates out of the six, 1-2-3, with 1 being the top choice. Here’s how they ranked them: 

Fraser, McGlothlin, Geffken and West all got votes. But all votes were not equal. 

“Only two people on this council voted for Norman at all,” Pontieri said of West, whose military background had won him the confidence of Gambaro, himself a brigadier general, and Miller, a veteran with extensive recent service. West was their top choice. But with just two council members behind him, that, to Pontieri, was a disqualifier. Miller didn’t object. 

“It makes sense, if you’re talking about, you know, trying to make sure that we have consensus on who the final correct person is,” Miller said. 

Fraser had all five council members voting for him. He is Sullivan’s top choice, and the second choice for all the other council members. He was an automatic shoe-in. 

“There he is. Done,” Miller said. 

Geffken gave council members colic. “I actually did really like him,” Pontieri said. “I was not a fan of his history, on his internet search history, so I say he’s out.” Pontieri’s biggest concern about him: going beyond board direction. “That, to me, was the number one thing that I cannot tolerate,” she said. Tellingly, he was Norris’s top choice. 

Sullivan and Miller thought similarly. “It kind of says, I’m smart, and I think I’m smarter than the people that are directing policy,” Miller said of Geffken. 

“At first I thought Geffken might be the best guy,” Sullivan said, “because he answered the questions well, and then you read the stuff about him. Now, the thing is he seems to me that he’s very knowledgeable, is qualified for the job, but I had to admit in the end I chose Fraser over him just because of that.”

“To me, you narrow it down to Fraser, McLaughlin, and you get rid of Norman [West] based on the fact that only two people voted for him,” Pontieri said. 

Gambaro advocated for West as a proven executive who lives in the community (he’s a Flagler Beach resident). “I think we’re making a mistake by not bringing him in,” he said. 

Norris was not interested, and quickly asked his colleagues if there was consensus to bring in Fraser and McGlothlin.

“If somebody drops out, then we’re down to the one, we’re in the same boat as we were a few months ago. I thought the intent was to go with three,” Gambaro said. 

“We can invite Geffken to explain,” Norris said. 

“Or we can go with West,” Gambaro pressed. 

“I’m sorry Charlie, I’m not going to go with that, because the same thing you said about Mr. [Lee] Eureste when he applied, and you said he was a technician.” Eureste had been part of the previous search pool, but ended up triggering a sub-feud between Norris and Gambaro when Gambaro, with colleagues’ support, eliminated him from contention. “Mr. Eureste had more experience in a municipal environment, working for a city than this brigadier general, and you threw him out with the bathwater. So I can’t go with that.”

“Okay, it’s payback. I get it,” Gambaro said. 

“It’s not payback. It’s honesty,” Norris said. “He’s probably more suited as a college professor, from what I saw. No payback.” 

Pontieri said that while she appreciated Gambaro’s worry about being left with one candidate, either Fraser of McGlothlin could do the job in her view, so if one of them dropped out, “I wouldn’t be, oh man, we lost our guy.” 

“That gives them time to watch this video and determine if they want to come interview with our city,” Norris said. 

A month before the interviews is a long time, however. “My only concern is kind of similar to last time,” Miller said, “you start having people drop out if they’re involved in other searches and things like that. So that would be the only reason to speed it up.” 

The November interview date stuck.