Court Sets Arguments for July 3 on Legitimacy of Charles Gambaro’s Palm Coast Council Seat

Last Updated: Friday, 10:07 a.m.

A July 3 hearing is set before Flagler County Circuit Judge Chris France to determine the validity of Palm Coast Mayor Mike Norris’s lawsuit claiming that Council member Charles Gambaro was appointed to fill out a two-year term last October in violation of the city charter. 

Norris contends the council should have held a special election for the District 4 seat, and Gambaro should not have continued past Election Day in November. 




Norris’s attorney, Anthony Sabatini, filed the lawsuit on May 5, along with an emergency order asking the court to direct the city to “show” by what legal authority he is claiming Seat 4 (that’s why it’s called a show-cause” hearing). The lawsuit names Gambaro, the supervisor of elections and the City of Palm Coast as defendants, but not the City Council in particular. 

The court could get the parties to agree to a date before July 3. “The parties have attempted to schedule expedited hearing time but were unable to coordinate on the hearing times offered,” France wrote in his May 14 order, so the court scheduled the July 3 hearing. Sabatini had requested a 30-minute hearing. Palm Coast, which has retained the Gray Robinson law firm, argued that 30 minutes would not be enough. France set aside 60 minutes for both sides, in essence rejecting Palm Coast’s hope for more time.

(Civil court hearings are typically time-limited. Norris, ina  social media post, claimed “Judge has expedited the hearing and denied the citiy’s pleas to push out the hearing.” In fact, France acceded to the city pushing out the hearing to July 3, but not to its request for more argument time at the hearing.)

“Procedurally, they requested an emergency hearing this week,” Palm Coast City Attorney Jeremiah Blocker said. “The judge denied that. It’s not an emergency. If it was an emergency, we’d be sitting in court now.” The mayor’s emergency argument is weakened by the fact that Gambaro has been serving as a council member for seven and a half months, six of those on Norris’s mayoral watch, yet Norris filed his suit only on May 5.

Palm Coast, Gambaro and the supervisor are each due to answer the Norris complaint by the end of May. Based on previous lawsuits that essentially rope in the supervisor in a proceeding that office is not directly involved in, the supervisor, represented by the county attorney’s office, will argue that it should be dismissed from the lawsuit.




“We don’t have a dog in this fight,” Assistant County Attorney Sean Moylan said today, just as he was preparing to file a motion on behalf of the supervisor, asking the court to strike the supervisor’s office from the case. 

The Norris lawsuit includes a count that asks the court to enjoin Kaiti Lenhart, the supervisor, and the city, to hold a special election after Gambaro is removed from the council, assuming he were to be removed. “Even if the court were to rule in Mike Norris’s favor, there’s no need for an injunction against Kaiti,” Moylan said. “It’s really an injunction against the city.” 

By charter, it is the city that calls an election. The supervisor is a contractor in the arrangement: the supervisor’s office only runs the election on behalf of the city. “It’s not improper for her to be named as a defendant,” Moylan said of Lenhart, “but it’s not necessary.” For good reason: Lenhart maintains a strictly non-partisan, objective approach to all elections. “She doesn’t want to be embroiled in political disputes or interpretations of the charter.” 

Norris has contended publicly–from the dais–in social media and in interviews that Gambaro’s appointment past Nov. 3 violated the charter, which states that when a council seat is vacated, the council must appoint a replacement within 90 days. Cathay Heighter resigned her seat in mid-August, with two years and two and a half months left in her term. The charter states the council may “delay the appointment,” and states that “such appointments shall last until the next regularly scheduled election, at which time the seat shall be declared open and an election held for the regular four-year term.” 




A strict reading of that clause suggests that the next regularly scheduled election for a four-year District 4 term could only be in 2026. Had the council held an election in 2024, it would have been a special election, and the term would have had to be limited to two years. The charter is silent on special elections for council seats, creating yet more murkiness for the judge to decipher.

The council–with four different members than it now has–voted to make an appointment even though it was outside the two-year window (barely). The council argued that there was too little time to call an election and require candidates to gather the petitions necessary to qualify without paying a $2,600 qualifying fee. Candidates would have had about a week or a little more to gather 165 petitions. 

The council’s decision relied on an interpretation of the charter rather than an explicit allowance by the charter. At the same time, the charter’s language is not so clear as to make the interpretation seem unreasonable. But that will be for the judge to decide.

“Final relief,” France ruled, “cannot be granted until the pleadings are closed. The July 3 hearing would be “final,” though France may issue a decision that day or in subsequent days. Norris said “Independnce Day is gonna get a lot better this year” in a social media post today, but he may have been premature to predict France’s ruling when he wrote: “This is a HUGE win for the people of Palm Coast and the right to elect your city leaders! We are confident given the responses from the judge that on July 4th 2025, the unelected and illegitimate Gambaro will be removed from the council!”

Norris told FlaglerLive last week that he was prepared to take the case “all the way to the Supreme Court” if necessary. The city may also appeal if France’s decision doesn’t go its way, opening the possibility of a clock running down the Gambaro term to the November 2026 election. Norris filed his lawsuit days after Gambaro led the way to have the council censure Norris and declare it had no confidence in the mayor.