After 12 years as Flagler Beach’s police chief, Matthew Doughney Thursday evening solemnly swore to spend quality time with his parents, family, and good friends, watch the Florida Gators and New York Islanders, seek out live music venues everywhere, read books and binge-watch Netflix, sip fine whiskey and continue his “legacy of dad jokes, whether people groan or laugh.”
Acting Police Chief Lance Blanchette swore out Doughney on those terms before a packed Flagler Beach City Commission meeting. The packing was due to a subsequent item nearly as historic as Doughney’s retirement. The audience witnessed a retiring chief who, contrary to tradition, opted not to pack his service firearm with him: he left it with the city.
“He instead asked for his bike,” City Manager Dale Martin said, to knowing applause: if Doughney was publicly known for one thing above all others beside his title, it was his peripatetic biking anywhere and everywhere, on and off duty. “Yeah, I’ll definitely get a lot of use out of out of that bicycle,” Doughney said before addressing the commission.
“I stand before you humbled and thank you,” Doughney said. “12 years is a long time for a police chief, probably double or triple the amount of time that a chief usually works in law enforcement, especially in a small town. But of the 4,439 days that I was the chief here, I loved every every day that I worked for you.”
At his retirement celebration earlier in the day at the city’s community center, where Sheriff Rick Staly made him an honorary deputy, Doughney spoke of his proudest achievement: bridging a divide that had prevailed between police and the public before his arrival. He revisited that theme at the commission meeting. “The police didn’t talk to the citizens and the citizens didn’t trust the police,” he said. “Hopefully, over the last 12 years, you’ve grown to understand that law enforcement is a very, very difficult profession. They want you to be a mentor, but then when there’s an active shooter, they want you to be a pit bull, and then 15 minutes later, they want you to be compassionate at the scene of a crash. The men and women that are here from the police department exemplify what small town policing is.”
In three months, the department will be accredited. He thanked the commission for trusting him, specifically thanking the people in place 12 years ago, when they hired him. He named then-City Manager Bruce Campbell, who resisted hiring from within–either within Flagler Beach or Flagler County–though he faced considerable pressure to do so, and took blistering criticism from then-Commissioner Kim Carney for not hiring Steve Clair, who’d recently left the Sheriff’s Office.
Doughney also named four commissioners who supported his hiring: Jane Mealy, Joy McGrew, Linda Provencher, and Steve Settle. He did not name Kim Carney. Instead he acknowledged people who “made a huge impact” on his years with the city and in his life, among them his mother, who was in the front row, Mike Abels, briefly an interim manager during a rough period for the city. And Amy Lukasik, his girlfriend and the tourism director for the county.
“I couldn’t have done it without Amy. I couldn’t have done it without my parents. I couldn’t have done it without my friends,” he said. “Lance always got my back. Best number two you could ever want hopefully he gets his shot. I think he’s earned it.”
The city hired Doughney in October 2013. He’d been the police chief of Avon Park from 2008 to 2010, and had previously been an officer with the Daytona Beach Police Department for 20 years, rising to captain. The city issued a proclamation in his honor.
“So from the bottom of my blue heart, thank you for the recognition,” Doughney said. “I’ve got a lifetime of friendships and memories, and thank you for the best little community everywhere that embraces law enforcement, because Flagler Beach is the bomb, and I’ll just end with this: Enjoy the small things in life, because you may later look back on life and realize those small things were actually the big things.”
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