County Attorney Al Hadeed, Now a Flagler Sheriff’s Deputy, Is Regaled Into Retirement

Three of the four charges seemed trumped up–impersonating an attorney, using outside counsel too often, taking ages to attain the demolition of the Old Dixie motel. The charges sounded suspiciously like those of Hadeed’s most devoted nemesis for the last few years, one whom Staly identified only as a “confidential informant” familiar to all.

The fourth charge sounded more deserved: “Calling the sheriff direct at all hours of the day and night, on weekends and any other time to report palmetto berry pickers trespassing on county lands, specifically near his home.”

Staly proceeded to declare Hadeed arrested, set bond “as retirement,” then paradoxically administer the oath making Hadeed an honorary sheriff’s deputy. The sheriff said it was just a practical solution to prevent those calls at all hours of day and night, now that Hadeed can chase after berry-pickers on his own and “take them to the Green Roof Inn, whatever you want to do with them,” the sheriff told him. 

It was one of the many surprises of Hadeed’s retirement send-off at the Government Services Building, an event that, however poorly advertised by the county’s human resources department that organized it (media were not invited and the event was not noticed on the county’s web calendar, though three commissioners read a proclamation, in effect making it a shade of an illegal meeting), drew nearly 100 people. Among them was Ginger Delegal, the executive director of the Florida Association of Counties and a lawyer by trade, who drove three hours and back to Tallahassee with Emily Anderson, manager of the state County Attorneys Association, just to deliver a five-minute speech. That’s how much Hadeed has meant to the association and the state’s governance circles.

“And so to the members of the county commission who are here this evening,” Delegal said, “thank you for lending him to us around the state, and on behalf of the entire state of Florida, we are going to miss you, Al.” 

Commissioners past and present were in attendance, among them Barbara Revels, whose eight years on the commission (2008-2016) were all part of Hadeed’s tenure. “I’ve never really known a county government without Al on whatever the issue was,” Revels said. “You can name anything, and Al would be the authoritative information person who’s got the history, as well as his respect throughout the state, which is just huge. He was called on by a lot of people around the state, and he could reciprocate and call on them.”

There were numerous local tributes, a proclamation, the dedication of a bench in Hadeed’s name at Princess Place Preserve, recognitions wrapped in gifts and held-back tears and choked-up memories and overhead screens projecting a lifetime of pictures (thankfully, not because he had died: at 77, he’s almost ready for his first presidential run), all emceed by County Commission Chair Andy Dance. 

Dance in an interview before the commemoration described a little-known Hadeed quality: he would call Dance, as he has other commissioners or officials, after a tough meeting and lent support and recognition. “You have second thoughts sometimes about how things go up there. So it’s good to get some of that acknowledgement later,” Dance said. “He’s really good about that.”

There was a sense, too, that the Hadeed era would not end. Why should it? 

“I never thought a day would come. He’s full of energy,” Deputy County Attorney Sean Moylan, who should have succeeded him but for the misplaced guile of the County Commission, said. “I don’t even know his exact age, 70 or whatever, and he’s just full steam ahead. A force of nature.I can’t imagine him sitting still.” Moylan had suggested to Maureen Hadeed, Al’s wife, that he should pick up a tape recorder and fill tapes with the oral history he’s collected (if notmade) over the decades. 

Maureen. She was the other hero of the evening as those who knew the role she played in Al’s life recognized what few knew, none more eloquently than County Administrator Heidi Petito.

“I know that we’re here to honor Al and all the wonderful things that he’s done for Flagler, but I think that it’s important that we extend our appreciation to his wife, Maureen,” Petito said. “You’ve been a quiet but powerful force and support behind him for the 27 years in Flagler. The part that I don’t know if people understand or know, but I think beyond the patience that you have, I think that you bring your own unique benefits to Flagler that people probably aren’t aware of. It’s really your incredible diligence, and I call it your super sleuth ability, because I know we’ve had this conversation with Al, and your research abilities to help advance some of the issues and challenges that we have, and so we appreciate everything that you’ve done. And so just heartfelt recognition for your partnership to Flagler County as well as the strength and the behind-the-scenes dedication that you’ve provided to us over the years.”

The Hadeeds’ daughters, Kristen and Lauren, also attended, as did many people who were there at Al Hadeed’s creation in Flagler, among them Ann Wilson, the realtor who worked the deal of his one and only house in the Hammock and introduced him to Flagler, and of course George Hanns, the once-eternal county commissioner who was on the Palm Coast District Service Council when the County Commission first hired him in 1990, and on the commission when it hired him again in 2007. 

Hanns wanted to be clear that he was “absolutely not” part of that pre-Christmas vote in December 1998 when a majority of three voted not to renew Hadeed’s contract after his first eight years, essentially firing him. That was the work of Hutch King, Blair Kanbar and John Seay, on the vaguest claims that somehow they were not running the government–Hadeed was. “They were teaming up on Al, and it was all under false pretenses, and it was a shame,” Hanns said. 

He happily rehired him seven years later, recalling how he and Hadeed had teamed up with Raymon Tucker to travel the state to land the Florida Agriculture Museum in Flagler County. They’d met in 1989. “After he met me, that’s when he started losing his hair,” Hanns, the commission’s last wit (he was defeated after 24 years in 2016) said. He described the time when he was chairing the commission and a particularly irritating member of the public came up to speak his alleged concern about Hanns’s health. Haans’s reply to him: “Have you ever tried Preparation H? That got Al holding his head like this. But we’ve had some fun.” 

Tributes mentioned Princess Place, Bings Landing and Hadeed’s other imprints on preserving the county’s environmental treasures, not least among them the herculean years he spent securing easements in Flagler Beach to enable the beach renourishment that took place last year on a little over three miles of shore, the first in the county’s history. 

The project had been hung up on one last property owner’s refusal to sign the easement until Hadeed called up Scott Spradley, the bankruptcy attorney in Flagler Beach, for help in the matter. He did so on a Saturday, at Spradley’s office. It was a rare time when Spradley happened to be there. The rest made history: the two attorneys secured the easement and the project went forward. 

“We rode to Orlando together in bankruptcy court several times,” Spradley said (the easement having had a tie-in to the property owner’s bankruptcy case), “so we really got to know each other well and talking about not only that particular case, but some of the legal issues, lawyer to lawyer, that he has confronted over his career. Very, very nice, pleasant discussions. So unbeknownst to me, when we were having those discussions two and three years ago, I didn’t realize that he was really reflecting on his career, which was coming to an end.”

Spradley is also a photographer. And so one of the gifts to Hadeed was a photograph he’d taken by drone, a view embracing the now-rejuvenated beach around the pier, a picture both historic–it will be one of the last documented images of the old pier before it is demolished–and forward-looking, now that the beach has returned. 

Hadeed, who’d been overcome by emotions a few times Thursday evening, also spoke briefly at the end. But for once, he’d been collectively upstaged. His last day was today.