The Palm Coast City Council this morning appointed Michael McGlothlin, a former city manager in Florida, North Carolina and Oregon who also spent a decade as a police chief, its next city manager. McGlothlin outlasted David Fraser, a candidate who built his career in the West.
The formal vote was 5-0, following a 3-2 vote by ballot, where Mayor Norris, Council members Charles Gambaro and Theresa Pontieri were in the majority, with Ty Miller and Dave Sullivan in the minority. Both dissenters had no objection to joining the majority for the formal vote to ensure unanimity.
“Regardless of who we choose, we’ll be choosing someone that will be great for Palm Coast moving forward,” Miller had said moments earlier. He credited the city’s human resources department for the groundwork it did.
“I agree with you,” Pontieri told Miller, “I think we’re really lucky that we came across two very, I think, genuine, hard workers who are qualified to do this job and that will do it well. I hope that we can get to 5-0 on this. I think we need to move forward, voting a great amount of confidence in whoever it is that we choose.” (A senior city administration official had put it this way previously: “I don’t get shyster vibes from either of them.”)
They then voted.
“So Mr. McGlothlin will be our new city manager if he accepts the contract,” Norris said.
“Humbled, honored and excited to be a part of the team and us joining the community,” McGlothlin said when reached by phone soon after the vote. He was referring to himself and his wife, Jessica, who had accompanied him to Palm Coast last week. He had been watching the council meeting, and his phone was now “blowing up,” he said.
No longer managing Redington Shores, McGlothlin said he was “ready and willing and committed to getting there as quickly as possible,” and suggested he would like to be in place before the New Year, but that the contract negotiations are next.
Pontieri suggested appointing Human Resources Director Renina Fuller and Acting City Manager Laure Johnston to negotiate the contract with McGlothlin. City Attorney Marcus Duffy cautioned the council about having Johnston, who will soon be reporting to McGlothlin, be part of the negotiating team. Johnston herself reminded the council in a previous hiring–when Matt Morton was hired in early 2019–the council appointed then-Council member Bob Cuff to negotiate the contract.
Norris then, without seeking his colleagues’ opinions, said he would negotiate it with Fuller. The unanimous vote encompassed Norris’s role as negotiator with Fuller.
“If you’re watching Mr. McGlothlin, congratulations, and we’ll be ready for you to hit the ground running when you get here, sir,” Norris said.
The brief segment took all of six minutes, ending a year and eight months since the city last had a permanent city manager in Denise Bevan, whom a different council unceremoniously fired in March 2024. Johnston was appointed interim. She had been the assistant city manager, a role she has long desired to return to. Council members repeatedly pressured her to take on the city manager job permanently. She repeatedly declined.
“We tried. I tried hard,” Sullivan said last week. “I said: this is it. Do you have any desire to stick with this job. She said no. She clearly would have been the top candidate for the job.”
While in the interim position, Johnston earned her master’s in emergency management, a field she is interested in pursuing, as, incidentally, her new boss did: he was also an emergency management director in his previous roles.
If the negotiations are successful, McGlothlin will be Palm Coast’s seventh city manager in the city’s 26 years, including two interims, following Dick Kelton, Jim Landon, Beau Falgout, Matt Morton, Bevan and Johnston.
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