After 9 Hours, 103 Votes and Immeasurable Entitlement, Will Furry Grasps Vice Chair for School Board

In possibly the most embarrassing and cringeworthy meetings of a board that has not lacked for contemptible meetings over the last few years, the Flagler County School Board, after nine hours and 103 votes, elected Will Furry its vice chair, after Furry had been chair for two years, denying the position to Lauren Ramirez. 

A divided board the previous day–in the same meeting–had elected Christy Chong chair. 

For most of Tuesday night and early this morning, the board deadlocked in 2-2 votes over the vice chair nomination, with Chong and Furry voting for Furry, and Ramirez and Janie Ruddy voting for Ramirez. Chong had nominated Furry (who had nominated her for chair). Ramirez had nominated herself. 

The departure of Derek Barrs from the school board two months ago for a position in the Trump administration left the board with a vacancy, and the potential for deadlocks, as tie votes mean motions fail. Gov. Ron DeSantis is due to make an appointment, but his decisions for local boards typically take months. He may rethink further delays after this debacle. 

“This is getting ridiculous,” the conspicuously humorless Chong said on the approach of 3. “I mean, are we going to sit here till Thanksgiving?”

According to bylaws, the superintendent–LaShakia Moore–chaired the organizational meeting. She did so with the sort of controlled balance and firmness that likely made many people wish she were the permanent chair. She had to rein in the board members several times as tensions flared and piques stabbed. 

It was only Ramirez’s concession 20 minutes later–this morning–that ended the deadlock, after Furry and Chong rejected a series of compromises, including a suggestion by the board attorney to “time-share” the position for six months, an approach Ramirez was willing to take. 

“It’s not on me that we’re here this late,” Ramirez said as she was starting to relent. “It’s the two of us are here because we both feel that we would be the best fit.” Furry had disingenuously intimated that she was to blame for the marathon. “I didn’t say that you’re the reason. We are all the reason why we’re all here this late,” he said. 

Not exactly. 

What had unfolded over nine hours, briefly interrupted by regular board business,  recesses and long silences, was an astounding display of entitlement and presumption by Furry. He’d held the chair of the board for the past two years and is running for a congressional seat in a campaign that, if he is to take it seriously, exacts time and effort that would inevitably diminish his focus on school board business. He claimed the congressional race is irrelevant to his role on the board and bristled at its repeated mention. 

Ruddy and Ramirez had repeatedly made sharp, evidence- and precedent-based arguments justifying Ramirez’s nomination. But that sort of reasoning is like the seed that falls on barren land on this board. 

Chong’s intransigent Furry fealty was more hypocritical than entitled: she refused to extend Ramirez the same opportunity Chong was given two years ago. 

Chong’s nomination as vice chair in November 2023, after she’d been on the board one year, was supported unanimously even though she had no similar experience elsewhere, and on a board with two members–Colleen Conklin and Cheryl Massaro–who’d either been in office or been chairing and participating in public boards (including state and federal boards) for most of Chong’s life. 

Ramirez at this point in her tenure also has more extensive civic and business experience than Chong beyond the school board. Chong’s three years on the board have been unremarkable, with not a single signature initiative to her credit. Chong’s participation tends to be limited to generalities or polemical outbursts but little aptitude for analysis, strategic or imaginative thinking. Her self-justification for chair showed it. 

Chong said it was her fourth year on the board, she wants the opportunity, and she is “really good at time management and keeping things on track.” Furry said nothing different, other than noting Chong’s two years as vice chair. Neither mentioned a substantial accomplishment other than running the trains on time, and that she was due. 

Ramirez never voted for Furry. She ended up voting against herself, and withdrawing her nomination, her last act of collaboration in a meeting where she and Ruddy had offered repeated compromises and collaborative suggestions, and Chong and Furry offered none. Chong had repeatedly pressured Ramirez or Ruddy to flip their vote for Furry. She not once asked Furry to flip his vote for Ramirez. 

Ramirez may have conceded, but only in the most technical sense of the term. She emerged more victorious in dignity, mettle and collegiality than either the chair or vice chair. One act among many showed how: after the end of the meeting, she shook hands with Furry and Chong and wished them a good year ahead, even though for many parts of the meeting, Furry had shifted his seat toward Ramirez, staring her down. Ruddy for her part showed beyond doubt that she is the board’s substantive center of gravity, even without the votes. 

“Chong and Furry did not look good last night,’” Trevor Tucker, the former school board member–he lost to Chong three years ago–said this morning. He’d attended the meeting until close to 2 a.m. “I’m not sure how Will Furry expects to win as a congressman if you can’t win the vice chairmanship. Wow. It was crazy, that’s for sure.”

“The whole thing is astounding,” he said. 

Tucker, who served three terms on the board, noted that Ramirez had lent her vote to Chong for chair, a gesture that should have by tradition and respect ensured Chong’s support in return. 

But if the meeting underscored a controlling dynamic on this board, it is obstinacy on one side and cooperation on the other. 

Initially, Ruddy and Ramirez had also nominated themselves for chair. 

Ruddy cited several accomplishments such as prompting a contract review that could save $1 million, advocating for gifted students to increase enrollment–a dire need for a district bleeding students–fostering new communication methods between the transportation department and parents, and so on. “I’ve been an active voice and participant in our meetings in order to understand the modern challenges that public education has, and how to navigate them best and hold our students at the forefront of every decision.” 

Ruddy underscored her strategic understanding of the district’s challenges. “Being the chair is not an attendance recognition or a tenure recognition,” she said. “It should be the member who can help us navigate these waters that we’re about to approach.” She later said that the choice was “more than a football team and choosing colors.”

Ramirez was equally expansive, citing the work she’s put in to prepare for the role, such as training through the School  Board Association, where she’s accumulated 70 certified board credits. (Chong has attended training sessions.) She is one of just 16 newly elected school board members in the state to be named an “emerging leader” by the state association. She did not mention the leading role she took through the state Ethics Commission in broadening all elected officials’ right to run businesses or employ individuals that may in some innocuous regards draw customers from their own government. 

For chair, Furry and Chong voted Chong. Ruddy voted for herself, with the other three opposed. Same result for Ramirez. 

The second round was identical. In the third round, Ramirez conceded, giving her vote to Chong, and Chong was elected chair. 

Chong then nominated Furry as vice chair. Ruddy nominated herself vice chair, and Ramirez did likewise for herself. 

The votes–and the disconcerting tragicomedy–began. 

Furry mustered only two votes (his and Chong’s), and Ruddy immediately switched to Ramirez, resulting in 2-2 for both Furry and Ramirez. So it began. So it went. Vote after vote. 2-2. At one early point, Ruddy tried to abstain, but the board attorney pressed for a vote. More 2-2 votes. 

Along the way board members commented. Ruddy spoke of Furry’s misjudgment in releasing information from a closed board session in a media interview (Furry disputed the claim), and his interest in “running for other pursuits,” meaning his current run for a congressional seat. 

Ruddy suggested to Furry that he might “perhaps give an opportunity for another board member so we can continue growing.” Furry responded with remarkable condescension: “It’s about experience, Ms. Ramirez. I believe you will build the experience to hold this position at some point in the future. But I don’t feel that it is right now.” He’d told her she still had three more years to grow, and “commended” her for her dedication. “I am the most qualified,” he said. 

Furry’s condescension did not stop: “In time that you could fill that role. I do not believe that now is the time.” He made a distinction between his being nominated as opposed to Ramirez nominating herself. “ I believe I received that nomination because I am the most qualified person to fill the role,” he said. 

Ruddy suggested to Chong that she revoke her nomination for Furry. Chong refused. Her insistence on Furry came down to this: “I would like him to back me up as the chair.”

Ruddy asked Furry to think beyond himself. “People don’t step down into a second-tier position after they hit the top. You would cultivate and work to help grow the next set of chairs or leaders in any organization,” she said. “ We’re not saying that. It means you’re out to pasture. You’re an active board member. What we’re saying is we’re putting the board’s health and readiness ahead of our own individual interests.” 

Furry, defending himself, again said the time wasn’t right for Ramirez. Ramirez had seemed on the verge of conceding, but when the votes resumed, it was again 2-2, and when the members spoke, Furry condescended as if he were speaking to an underling: “this is your first year you’ve been learning,” “You have served diligently. You’re at every meeting. You contribute,” “but there’s a time for everybody, and your time will come at some point.” He also repeatedly boasted about his abilities. 

When another vote failed, Moore suggested tabling the matter and moving on with other business. Furry refused, but the board agreed to carry out its other agenda items and return to the vice chair issue later in the meeting. That vote carried, finally enabling County Judge Andrea Totten, who’d been waiting for an hour and a half, to swear in Chong.  

When the board returned voting for vice chair, the scenario didn’t change, nor did Furry’s “grasp,” as Ruddy described it, on the title. “Nothing was identified in terms of what made you qualified in the first place that Miss Ramirez doesn’t already have,” Ruddy told Furry. She implored him and Chong “to make the mature choice” of allowing for the development and mentorship of new leadership in the role. 

“One has a preponderance of an argument that makes sense as founded in something that is beyond her own wish, whereas on the other side your position is, well, I was nominated,” Ruddy told Furry, reminding him that his term was “finite” by his own choice. Ruddy’s reasoning fell on deaf ears. Furry, who did not appear to understand the word “finite,” accused Ruddy of using “rude terms.” Ruddy motioned that he was disparaging her and out of order. Ramirez seconded, but the motion was bound to fail. 

Moore had to intervene a few times to restore order. 

“Mr. Furry, I know you feel you have the most experience,” Ramirez said. “I’m a business owner. I’m going to another country tomorrow to present at a conference that I was invited to. I have experience, okay? I have experience in this community and with the Florida School Board Association that our community is paying for us to attend and go to. And I did not miss one.”

There were more votes, recesses, votes, attempts by Moore to inspire a different outcome, attempts by Ramirez and Ruddy to table the issue to a future meeting. 

“I would hope that tabling [for a] later date allows people to essentially have conversations outside of maybe their current mindset,” Ruddy said, nearing 11 p.m., “to be able to evaluate the position from a different angle, and also, if somebody were to wish to rescind their nomination, I think it’s difficult when to do so when, let’s say, you’re voting on something 50 times.” 

Furry, misinterpreting the Sunshine Law, said “we can’t discuss this outside of this room because of sunshine.” The board members can’t discuss it among themselves outside of the meeting. But they can discuss it at will with anyone else, as the board attorney confirmed.  

“In 28 years of representing school districts, this is the first time I’ve ever come across a board that was not able to complete the organizational meeting in one set time period and had to look into a continuance,” David Delaney, the school board attorney, said. 

At 3 a.m. almost on the dot, Ramirez made her last move. 

On whatever sleep she got, by 8 this morning, after leading an early morning administrative meeting at the Government Services Building, Moore was on the road, making the three-hour drive to Tallahassee for meetings there. She acknowledged the night’s difficulties, but looked at the positive beyond the chamber in answering a question about how the board could move forward after this. 

“It’s been a pleasure working with this board, they have been very attentive, they attend things in the community,” Moore said. “Based on that, that is what I use when I assess or reflect on how they will move forward. I go on their past behavior over this last year as school board members.”