Last Updated: 10:38 a.m.
Florida Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson on Wednesday appointed Perry Mitrano to the East Flagler Mosquito Control District board seat in place of Jules Kwiatkowski, who had held the seat for 17 years until his death on Dec. 1. Mitrano is to serve out the term until the 2028 election.
Mitrano, an auctioneer, a member of the Palm Coast Charter Review Committee and the current chair of the Flagler County Republican Executive Committee, twice ran against Kwiatkowski, losing to him in 2024 (46 percent to 54 percent) and in 2020 (40 percent to 60 percent).
Mitrano, 67, had previously applied to fill the still-vacant seat on the Flagler County School Board but withdrew to apply to the three-member mosquito control board, a seat he intends to run for in 2028. He said he had the support of fellow Mosquito Control board members Michael Martin and Lance Alred, both REC members.
“I’d like to thank Agriculture Secretary Wilton Simpson for making such a quick appointment of Perry Mitrano,” Martin, who chairs the board, said Thursday morning, “a man of intelligence and experience to take Jules’s seat, but you can’t replace Jules. Perry will bring demonstrated commitment and passion to the Board, and both Lance and I have worked with Perry before: we welcome him.”
“I’m really excited, I’ve been waiting for this, and we’re really going to take the district to a new level,” Mitrano said, with “good, proper growth.”
In his previous runs, particularly in 2020, Mitrano had been critical of the mosquito board, which endured financial difficulties, followed by the removal of one of its members, Florence Fruehan, after he pleaded to a felony unrelated to his work on the board. Mitrano had not not spared criticism for Kwiatkowski, especially for not seeking a replacement for Fruehan.
Mitrano was more magnanimous on Wednesday. “Wonderful man, he loved the district. They should name the building, the helicopter and the turtle after him,” Mitrano said of Kwiatkowski, apparently referring to one of the Palm Coast Arts Foundation’s sculpted turtles placed on the district’s property. “He always meant well, but they had a bad director. It was about the leadership that caused them to spiral, and they couldn’t stop it.”
“They were led so poorly by the old director, and there was no wrongdoing in their audit,” he said. “It’s just that what they did show was that they didn’t follow procedure, and they were poorly led.” Mitrano lauds the current administration and executive director of the agency, Mark Positano.
As for the future with Mitrano on the board, “We need to make proper planning,” he said. “You can’t just keep getting in there saying, I’m going to reduce, reduce and reduce without the management of what is your long term plan? So maybe you need to manage that so it doesn’t impact people later with a larger millage increase.”
The mosquito board operates on an $11 million budget (including over $5 million in reserves) financed by a property tax of 35 cents per $1,000 in taxable value, or $52 a year for a house assessed at $200,000, with a $50,000 homestead exemption.
For 10 years between 2009 and 2019, Mitrano was the waste management director for the City of Bunnell, adding the title of utility director toward the end of that tenure. He has also served on the mosquito district’s audit selection committee. He says his work in waste management dovetails with the service-oriented work of mosquito control. “People have to be qualified and well established, and I have that. I put that on my resume, plain and simple,” he said.
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