How Peter Johnson’s ‘Bullshit’ Trespass Led to Sunshine on FC3 Cultural Board and Its Accountability to Palm Coast

A FlaglerLive Special Report

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Peter Johnson, a candidate for Palm Coast mayor last year and a former member of the Flagler County Cultural Council board, was trespassed from the offices and meetings of the council at the county airport after an exchange that left one of the council members in tears. 

The incident took place on June 20. Deputy County Administrator Jorge Salinas last week, after Johnson appealed, reduced the trespass to three months.  

Its poor light on Johnson’s future political ambitions aside, the incident is less significant than what led to it and what consequences have resulted from it, with Johnson more a catalyst than instigator in both regards. 

The incident underscored what had become an uneasy and contentious relationship between the Palm Coast City Council and FC3, as the Flagler County Cultural Council likes to refer to itself. Palm Coast is requiring more accountability and openness. And it led to an opinion by the county attorney’s office that FC3 should henceforth operate under sunshine, meaning that its meetings must be advertised ahead of time and be open to the public, and that its members refrain from communicating with each other on FC3 business outside of those meetings. 

Ironically, one of the reasons Johnson, who is predisposed to have an excitable disposition, had been agitated and upset at FC3 on June 20 was that a trio of FC3 members had been meeting ahead of a board meeting to discuss that day’s agenda, which Johnson considered a violation of sunshine. He was right. But FC3 members had never been properly tutored by the county about sunshine. 

“At the time we were under the impression that we were not operating under sunshine,” Jay Scherr, a member of the FC3 bioard who was present at the June 20 incident, said today. He said the organization operated “in the spirit of sunshine. But we were not required to operate under sunshine, and clearly there was some ambiguity there, because no one could necessarily say yes or no at that point. So there were different opinions as to whether we were required to or not. Now, there’s some clarity there.” 

FC3 and Its Relationship with Palm Coast

The Flagler County Cultural Council is a non-profit that advocates for and coordinates arts and culture in the county. The County Commission named it the Local Arts Agency, amplifying its ability to secure grants. 

Palm Coast government last year designated FC3 to accept and rank the city’s cultural arts grants. Palm Coast appropriated $100,000. FC3 awarded $89,000 to 11 cultural organizations such as City Repertory Theatre, the Palm Coast Music Festival, the Community Chorus of Palm Coast and the Flagler Education Foundation, which isn’t known for its performing arts. (The grant is for the Josh Crews Writing Project, an annual initiative named after a voracious reader who lost his life in a crash in 2010, and who inspires students to write; the writings are annually collected in a book.)

The council approved the grants at a June 17 meeting, but not before it got contentious. 

Deborah Morgan, a member of the county’s tourism bureau and its liaison to the cultural council, had presented to the council, alongside Johnson. (Morgan is the person Johnson reduced to tears three days later.) 

The Palm Coast Historical Society had withdrawn its application after FC3 scored it scored lower than all but one or two applicants, and after it moved its event to a different date later in the calendar,  “which is great news because they’ll be eligible again for the fiscal year 26 grant cycle,” Morgan said. 

That’s not why the application was withdrawn, Raesa Pabst, president of the Palm Coast Historical Society, said. It was withdrawn “because we did not want any favoritism that we saw going on,” Pabst told the City Council. “I was in shock and disbelief after I discovered reviewing those grants both had discrepancies in them, but one had the most egregious errors in it, that was the Flagler County Historical Society.”

Johnson described the historical society’s application as “rushed” and lacking. “I think everyone scored it pretty accurately for what was presented,” he said. 

Johnson, Morgan, Danielle Anderson and Nancy Crouch had been the FC3 graders. 

Palm Coast Objects to FC3’s Heavy Hand

Council member Theresa Pontieri had questions about the scoring criteria. She was “put off by the tone that was taken with the Palm Coast Historical Society.” The grant application was for Founders’ Day, the annual celebration of the city’s incorporation in 1999. “I don’t know that the proper amount of grace was maybe given to this,” Pontieri said, describing both sides as “starting on the wrong foot.” She asked that both restart fresh. 

Johnson during that meeting sharply–and perhaps reflecting the very tone Pontieri had referred to– defended the cultural council’s approach, saying it had been fair. “With the integrity of the scoring system we can’t waver on that, because it’s tax dollars,” he said. 

Mayor Mike Norris asked Johnson how much experience he had in grant writing. 

Without skipping a beat, Johnson said: “About as much experience as you have in public service.” An uncomfortable silence followed. Heads shook. 

Norris spoke of disrespect from the cultural council, citing an “insulting” email and questioning whether the city should continue its relationship with FC3. 

“We’re the piggy bank for the county,” the mayor said. “I’m not going to sign on and be party to a core organization in our city that’s designated to preserve the history of our city, to be treated like a redheaded stepchild when it comes to funds that are coming primarily from our coffers, our taxpayers.” He said FC3 was influenced by politics, a veiled reference to Anderson, if not Johnson, his old rival. 

City Council member Dave Sullivan defended FC3, with which he had previously been involved, describing it as still in its infancy and needing room to grow. And Pontieri pushed for a better process. “ I want to see it done in a more professional way,” she said, “and I do think that the process is probably a little flawed, being that one score can bring down other qualifying scores.” 

That’s where the council left matters, at least in public. In private, Pontieri questioned why the organization was not operating under sunshine, and finally got satisfaction on that score. 

The June 20 “Bullshit” Incident

But the City Council’s June 17 meeting left Johnson reeling. On June 20 he went to the FC3 board meeting scheduled for that day. Before the meeting, FC3 members Nancy Crouch, Morgan and Scherr were having a discussion about the agenda stemming in part from what took place at the City Council. It was about “how we were going to move that process forward,” Scherr said, “how that was going to look like, discussing the meeting that had just taken place with the city, but it was all in regards with what was to be discussed on the agenda.” 

Again: matters that should have been part of an open meeting, but the three members didn’t know it. 

“Peter began expressing his frustration with the way FC3 was treated during the City Council meeting,” Scherr said in a statement. “His emotions escalated quickly—he raised his voice, then began yelling and using profanity. This behavior was uncharacteristic of Peter in our usual board settings.” (See the full statement here.) 

To Johnson, the pre-meeting was improper, but beyond that, “I then took the opportunity to highlight in detail the situations that are problematic for FC3’s viability,” he said in a statement, “including but not limited to conversations centered around constant discussions of spending thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of taxpayer dollars on special events that are not within the guiding principles and strategic action plan of the organization. How I felt it was “bullshit” that Debra and I were left to present after I had offered to do the grant review presentation weeks prior and was told no, and then in the 11th hour I was the only board member left in attendance, as the grant executor had another meeting to attend, the vice chair was posting about his podcast, and the chair was stuck out of town on a croquet trip.” (See the full statement here.) 

“Bullshit” is the extent of what Salinas in his memo referred to as “profanity.” (Scherr in his statement said Johnson used “profanity,” but did not specify. In an interview, he said he “definitely” used the f-word, along the lines of “this is fucked up,” or “fucking bullshit,” which Johnson denies doing.) The word bullshit–and worse–is heard at public meetings (the f-word more rarely so), and the federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeals last year declared it all but a protected word in public discussions (in other words, saying “shit” at a public meeting cannot be grounds for removal).

It went beyond that: “Debra accused me of having a ‘tone’ and that I needed to, in other words, watch my tone,” Johnson said. Referring to personal history (not with Johnson), Morgan then “stormed out of the room,” crying. (This isn’t Johnson’s first run-in with a standard of decorum his mightier-than-thou intelligence seems at times incapable of not smearing, though he’s also himself been the target of vicious smears.)

“I went straight to my office where I had a full-on panic attack, unable to catch my breath and trembling,” Morgan said in a statement. “Clearly Peter’s actions had triggered some very painful emotions and caused this traumatic response.” Cops were called. Morgan called Amy Lukasik, the tourism director. It was her day off. Morgan wanted to know “how we could get Peter trespassed.” (See Morgan’s full statement here.) 

Johnson said whatever he had done had nothing to do with him other than his actions “triggering” Morgan. 

Nevertheless Courtnee Brokaw, the county’s tourism marketing manager, whose office was nearby, “reported hearing angry shouting from the conference room, subsequently observing Ms. Morgan in tears and exhibiting signs of a panic attack,” according to the deputy county administrator’s memo to Johnson. 

“Angelene Davis, Marketing Media Manager, further supports the sequence of events, emphasizing the aggressive gesturing and persistent attempts to re-engage after the initial confrontation, which heightened safety concerns among those present.” (See the Davis statement here.) 

Scherr asked Johnson to leave, doors were locked, and Johnson was prevented from going back in for the meeting. See the video exchange between Johnson and Scherr, captured by Johnson, below:

Trespassing proceedings followed, but by the county, not by the Sheriff’s Office. It is unclear what authority the county has to trespass anyone, absent law enforcement’s involvement. 

Siding with Sunshine

Curiously, even Salinas, the deputy county administrator, in his memo referred to Johnson as entering a “closed-door discussion,” without making reference to what Salinas would have known to be an improper closed-door session. That did not weigh in Johnson’s favor, even in retrospect, even though the county conceded that FC3’s meetings had been, informally or not,  improperly held out of sunshine. (See Salinas’s full memo here.) 

The county’s opinion on sunshine was not issued until Aug. 13, after Pontieri sent Moylan an attorney general opinion from 1998 on a similar issue involving a cultural council in Lake County. 

“There is no question that FC3 is more entangled with the Tourist Development Office than other non-profit corporations that receive grant funding from the County,” Moylan’s memo concluded. “To the extent FC3’s Promotional Services Agreement requires FC3 to utilize public funds to fulfill part of the County’s strategic goal of attracting tourists interested in culture and history, it is my opinion that FC3 has stepped into the policy arena and become part of the decision-making process of how the County spends its promotional TDT revenue.” 

There could be instances where the organization’s members could discuss mechanics of their organization outside sunshine, as long as it does not involve government funds, Moylan found. “This is one of the most challenging Sunshine Law questions I’ve been presented. The answer is not black and white. However, when in doubt, the best practice and safest course of action is to assume the Sunshine Law applies.” (See Moylan’s full memo here.) 

Scherr left no doubt: “We will certainly be operating under sunshine.” 

The Palm Coast City Council on Tuesday is discussing its relationship with FC3, and setting out more precise parameters through a formal agreement. The parameters can be demanding: “Upon written request form the City’s Manager or Designee to reasonably inspect any book, documents, papers, and records that pertain to FC3’s management of the Cultural Art Grant for the purpose of the City performing an audit examination, or other review of the program,” the agreement states. (See the full proposal here.) 

Johnson, for his part, is still reeling, but also applauding the outcome of the whole business, his trespassing excluded. 

“The trespass order issued against me is not only unjust—it is an unlawful retaliation for exposing blatant violations of the Sunshine Law,” he said on Thursday. “Assistant County Attorney Sean Moylan’s legal memo unequivocally confirms that FC3’s decision-making must occur transparently and in publicly noticed meetings. Despite this clear legal guidance—and Mr. Moylan’s recommendation to provide additional training to FC3 to ensure compliance—the County chose to ignore the law and weaponize a politically motivated trespass against me; even after appeal, which they now refuse to fully rescind.”

Still, he added, “Still, this situation stands as a victory for public accountability and integrity, proving that those who push for openness with legitimate concerns cannot be easily suppressed. The trespass may have been intended as intimidation, but it is merely a burden worth shouldering to ensure that any organization entrusted with taxpayer dollars remains open to public scrutiny, accountable to the law, and transparent in its operations. Despite these challenges and missteps by the County and board, FC3 remains a vital asset to Flagler County, as the official Local Arts Agency with a core mission of helping foster arts, history, and culture within our region.”