Flagler Beach a Putt Away from Selling Off Golf Course, But Ethics Complaint Takes Beaver Pelt to 3-2 Vote

Ocean Palm Golf Club, for 12 years a Flagler Beach city property and a quarry of millstones around commissioners’ necks, is one ordinance reading away from returning to private ownership. 

The Flagler Beach City Commission Thursday voted 3-2 to approve the $800,000 sale of the 37-acre property on first reading. A second reading is required to make the sale final. The city has received $40,000 from the buyer, escrowed until then. 

Commissioners Rick Belhumeur, Eric Cooley and Scott Spardley voted for the sale. Commission Chair James Sherman and John Cunningham voted against. 

Sherman wants to preserve the course as a city asset. Cunningham, who’s developed a seething animus toward City Manager Dale Martin, raised questions about a pending state ethics complaint against Martin for allegedly conducting negotiations outside the public process. “It just seems irresponsible for us to be making a decision when we don’t know what the outcome is going to be,” Cunningham said. But he may be giving the complaint more weight than warranted, given the dubious nature of those complaints and their frequent misuse and abuse as political or slandering tools. 

The course is being sold to Jeff Ryan and Tanuj Seoni, the leaseholders at the property since they took it over in January 2024. They call their company Ocean Palms Golf Club, adding an s to Palm. 

The city had pushed for clarity on financing ahead of the sale. Jay Livingston, the land-use attorney representing the new owners, said the loan they are seeking is “a $6 million number.” The lenders won’t make that commitment until the commission approves the sale on second reading. After that, the city will have nothing to hold the owners to their commitment to develop an elegant golf course. 

“The financing that’s being pursued is for everything so it will be for the acquisition, as well as the site development, as well as the building and everything necessary for the redevelopment plan,” Livingston said. 

“How do we ensure that we don’t wind up where we are presently, with a golf course that is at best, equal, if not worse, than what it was when the tenancy began?” Commissioner Scott Spradley had said in July. “I don’t know how  benchmarks could be incorporated into an agreement if the sale occurs on the front end of that.” 

The commission since then included a clause in the sale that would ensure that the golf course would remain a golf course, though the clause is reversible by a unanimous future commission. The city could also theoretically reverse course if the loan has not been secured by closing. Beyond that, the timelines are up to the owners. It could be 90 days between the commission’s final approval and closing. 

“If we don’t get the lending approved, and I notify you of that,” Livingston told the commission, “the contract terminates, and the deposit is returned, and we’re done.”

If the sale closes, the uncertainty shifts to the owners’ capabilities of living up to their promises. “You guys pretty confident that the contractors you may have in line will hold their dollars, their costs, to where you don’t get a big fat surprise?” Belhumeur asked Ryan. Ryan said he was, and if the loan was not approved, he said private equity was available. 

Then Cunningham lobbed his grenade: “Can you tell me if there’s an active ethics investigation going on?” he asked City Attorney Drew Smith. 

There is, Smith said. It’s about the golf course transaction. “The investigation part is closed. Now it will be a probable cause hearing before the [Ethics Commission] board in January, so that’s when they will determine if there’s anything that they want to pursue.” 

Cunningham said he wasn’t notified about the complaint. At least some other commissioners were, but not all, and they would have been notified by Dale Martin, the city manager, who is the named respondent in the complaint. The complaints are confidential until the Ethics Commission makes a probable cause determination either way–unless either the complainant or the respondent (in this case Martin) chooses to disclose the complaint. Neither is barred from doing so. 

Anyone can file an ethics commission complaint. The complaints are at times used as a political tool to damage an individual’s reputation, since the mere appearance of an “investigation” lends itself to easily amplified hints of wrongdoing, especially when the unsubstantiated hints are maliciously leveraged on social media. Officials at the receiving end of complaints must defend themselves on their own dime, not their government’s, a cost that can easily run into the thousands of dollars, while complainants’ costs are limited to a first-class stamp. 

The majority of complaints filed with the state commission are tossed, either because those who file them do so with insufficient evidence, or because the filers misunderstand the Ethics Commission’s jurisdiction and powers. 

In this case, unless there is probable cause to believe that Martin personally benefited from the transaction–financially or otherwise–there is no valid complaint. Simply the fact that he met with the future golf course owners or negotiated with them is not a breach of ethics in the Ethics Commission’s view, especially since Martin was given direction by the commission to discuss a possible sale. Even if he had not been given that direction, had he negotiated a sale without commission approval would not be an Ethics Commission matter, but a City Commission matter. 

A group of individuals who live near the golf course have consistently opposed its sale and urged the commission to consider leasing the course to a different company that floated a proposal. The complaint appears to have originated with the same group. 

To Cunningham, the commission should not move further until the Ethics Commission’s determination is made, likely in January, according to Smith. The rest of the commission disagreed. “I don’t know if there was someone being accused of back channels with somebody. It didn’t affect what we talked about here with the public,” Cooley said. “The decision was made here, and we made it. Every question we asked, we got answered.”

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