Today at the editor’s glance: The Palm Coast City Council meets in special session today at 9 a.m. at City Hall to discuss and vote on an agreement with Flagler County government that would have Palm Coast’s deputy fire chief act as the county’s interim chief until early July. It’s an inexplicable agreement, and the county administration did not explain it when it asked the commission to approve it Monday: Joe King has been the county’s interim chief since Don Petito was forced out almost a year ago. He’s done the job and could have continued doing the job until Mike Tucker, the new fire chief, begins the job after Independence Day. Somehow late last week County Administrator Cameron decided to rush through the agreement with Palm Coast to bring in Bradd Clark, Palm Coast’s deputy fire chief, as the interim. Clark is a brilliant guy, it’s no slight on him to question the county’s motive–and the rush job, which caused County Commissioner to vote against the agreement for a logical reason: the proposal wasn’t vetted, nor its necessity explained. Maybe the city council will get clearer answers at its special meeting today. That meeting will be followed by a workshop, the first on Interim Manager Denise Bevan’s watch as manager. The council is scheduled to have its first discussion about a search for a new permanent manager and discuss next year’s property tax rate–the so-called trim rate, set in early summer and intended to be a rate beyond which the council may not go, once it sets its actual rate at two September hearings. The council will yet again consider the matter of closing Slow Way, that tiny street at the south end of town that’s vexed council members and residents for months–first closing it, then retreating, and now, who knows. Here’s the complete meeting packet if you’re scoring at home. Keep an eye on this: The county’s average drought index is at 420 and climbing. The Big Lie is in syndication: Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, indicted on corruption charges though he is, just called Israel’s new government the “biggest election fraud in history.” Talk about a Trump club. Time for inoculations:
Vaccinations: The Flagler County Health Department (DOH-Flagler) is continuing its COVID-19 vaccination opportunities for the next week. Here are this week’s sites:
- Tuesday, June 8, 4:30 to 6:30PM — After-Hours Vaccination Clinic at DOH-Flagler, 301 Dr. Carter Blvd in Bunnell. Ages 12 and older — Pfizer only
- Wednesday, June 9, 4:30 to 6:30PM — After-Hours Vaccination Clinic at DOH-Flagler, 301 Dr. Carter Blvd in Bunnell. Ages 12 and older — Pfizer only
- Thursday, June 10, 4:30 to 6:30PM — After-Hours Vaccination Clinic at Flagler County Tax Collector’s office, 2525 Moody Blvd. in Flagler Beach. Ages 18+ — Moderna only.
Appointments for the Pfizer-only clinics at the health department are preferred. Please call 386-437-7350 ext. 0 for scheduling or questions. The health department will offer drive-through COVID-19 testing on Friday, June 11 between 2:30 and 3:30PM across from 120 Airport Road. This site may close in the event of storms.
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For the full calendar, go here.
“Consider Scheherazade, whose name meant “city-born” and who was without a doubt a big-city girl, crafty, wisecracking, by turns sentimental and cynical, as contemporary a metropolitan narrator as one could wish to meet. Scheherazade, who snared the prince in her never-ending story. Scheherazade, telling stories to save her life, setting fiction against death, a Statue of Liberty built not of metal but of words. Scheherazade, who insisted, against her father’s will, on taking her place in the procession into the king’s deadly boudoir. Scheherazade, who set herself the heroic task of saving her sisters by taming the king. Who had faith, who must have had faith, in the man beneath the murderous monster and in her own ability to restore him to his true humanity, by telling him stories.”
— Salman Rushdie, “Ask Yourself Which Books You Truly Love,” the Times, May 24, 2021.
Previously:
Mann’s Crude virility | Ernie Pyle | Reagan’s gays | Too much art | Internment | Refracted hate | Online behavior | Groovy Tennyson | Overwork | There is a God | On Lincoln | Killing the planet | A Vietcong infantryman | Property v. minorities | Originalism | Liberty v. fatality | Blanche Gardin | Poe’s old age | Whose Christian tradition? | The real socialists | Roberto Bolaño | WSJ v. China | GOP radicals | Worrying about Jesus | Norilsk
steve says
lil sweaty do nothing marco
Just a thought says
Very good insight in the Petito, King, Clark, Tucker saga. You raise questions that all of us have. Why are they making these changes and why now? If King cannot act as interim fire chief for one more month why have him as a deputy fire chief? How can rank and file firefighters have any respect for King if the County Commissioners have no respect for him? The county has thrown a grenade into the the EOC. Or…is this a ploy for consolidation of the two departments? Very curious.