4 Front-Runners Emerge as Palm Coast City Council Pares Down List of City Manager Candidates

Palm Coast City Council members have pared down their list of some 112 applicants for city manager to 42, with nine of those favored by at least three council members, and four of them favored by four. No candidate has so far won the backing of all five. The council this evening will short-list the pool. Mayor Mike Norris previously suggested that the council focus on candidates with at least three votes.

The council members were due to have each turned in their list of the top 25 names they favored at a workshop two weeks ago. The human resources director would have tallied the sheets and enabled the council to narrow down the list at the time. Some of the council members did not turn in their lists back then. They did so in the interim. FlaglerLive requested all five lists. The candidates according to their selection by council member appear in the chart below.

The city administration could not have tallied the selections or ranked them outside of a public meeting.

Council member Charles Gambaro turned in just two names: Norman West, who, like Gambaro, is a brigadier general, but with an experience exclusively military. Only Council member Ty Miller included West on his list.

Gambaro also chose Anthony Schembri, one of the candidates who got four votes. He’s a former county administrator in Citrus County and a former secretary of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice with experience mostly in law enforcement. He’s also taught at Pace University–he has a doctorate in law–and was a Fulbright Scholar and has written two books. Miller and council members Theresa Pontieri and Dave Sullivan put him on their lists. Pontieri gave him two stars (out of two), and Miller ranked him in his second tier, among “strong candidates,” below “exceptional candidates.”

The three other candidates who got four votes (the term “vote” is used loosely here: the council members have not yet voted so much as placed check marks next to their favored candidates’ names) are Charles Jackson, Michael McGlothlin, and Thomas Thomas (the name is not a misspelling).

Jackson has worked in state and local government leadership for about 25 years, most recently (and currently) as deputy county administrator of Augusta-Richmond County in Georgia, a county geographically smaller than Flagler County but with a population almost twice as large. He was a county manager in tiny Northampton County, North Carolina, and was the budget manager for the city of Raleigh previously.

McGlothlin was the town administrator in Redington Shores, a town less than half the size of Flagler Beach and smaller than Bunnell, on the barrier island bordering the Gulf of Mexico, west of St. Petersburg. (The town approved a ban on shark fishing early in his tenure.) He has about two decades’ experience in law enforcement.

The reduplicately named Thomas was for less than two years, until July 2023, the city manager of Compton, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles a little less populous than Palm Coast (he’d grown up in nearby Long Beach). The City Council fired him with a unanimous vote after a closed-door session. for about a year the city manager of Unalaska, also known as Dutch Harbor, also known to fans of the Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch” as the seasonal home harbor of the crab fleet. Before that he’d managed Rock Island, an Illinois city of about 40,000 people. He also has administrative experience in county government in Georgia.

Copy of Palm Coast City Manager Applications and Ranking, 1st Round

Applicant	Gambaro	Miller	Norris	Sullivan	Pontieri	State	Masters Degree	8 Years in CM office
Alvarez, Ana		2.3		x	xx	California	Yes	Yes
Baldwin, Randall		2.9				Missouri	Yes	No
Bazzoffi, Antonio					x	New York	No	No
Brant, John		3.6			x	Georgia	No	Yes
Brillhart, Michael		4.2		x	xx	Florida	Yes	Yes
Brown, Carl					xx	Florida	Yes	No
Brown, Howard				x		Florida	Yes	Yes
Castaldi, Stephen		2.3				Florida	No	No
Castano, Peggy				x	xx	Florida	Yes	Yes
Corbo, Stephanie		3.7			x	Colorado	Yes	No
Davis, James		2.1			x	Florida	Yes	Yes
Deering, Sean		3.6			x	Virginia	Yes	No
Fraser, David			x	x	x	Wyoming	Yes	Yes
Frigiola, Nicholas					x	Florida	No	7 Years
Geffken, Carl		4.3	x		xx	Arkansas	Yes	Yes
George, Eldred			x			Texas	Yes	No
Harris, Derrick					x	Arkansas	No	Yes
Hicks, Michael		2.9		x		Georgia	Yes	Yes
Jackson, Charles		4	x	x	x	Georgia	Yes	Yes
Jordan, Patrick		4		x	xx	Mississippi	Yes	Yes
Kelley, Brian		4.4				Utah	Yes	Yes
Mahar, Joseph					x	Florida	Yes	No
McGlothlin, Michael		4	x	x	xx	Florida	Yes	No
McGrath, Thomas		2.9				New York	Yes	No
Miller, Sidney		2.9				Florida	Yes	Yes
Pendleton, Patrick		3				Georgia	Yes	Yes
Perkins, Jaime			x			Florida	Yes	No
Raby, Donald		3.6				Florida	Yes	No
Reed, Jonathan		3.2				Florida	Yes	No
Rees, Amanda		3		x		Florida	No	Yes
Reinshuttle, Robert		3.8	x		x	Florida	Yes	No
Robinson, Andrew		3.5				Florida	Yes	No
Santos, Carlos		3				Texas	Yes	No
Schembri, Anthony	X	3.8	x		xx	Florida	Yes	Yes-County Administrator
Shea, Nicole		3.4				Texas	Yes	No
Sims, Jarvis		4			x	Georgia	Yes	Yes
Spinelli, Victor				x			Yes	No
Thomas, Thomas		4.7	x	x	x	Illinois	Yes	Yes
Turner, Ashley		2.9				Georgia	No	No
Upchurch, James			x			Georgia	Yes	No
West, Norman	X	4.8				Florida	Yes	No

The five City Council members were each to provide up to 25 names, out of a pool of 112 applicants. Only the candidates who garnered any council member's selection are included in this chart. Candidates who received three or more selections are in bold and italics. Council members selected their candidates by different methods. Miller, for example, ranked his choices by weighted scores. Pontieri gave one or two stars. Gambaro provided just two names. Each council member's tally sheet and selection method is linked to the council member's name. None of the candidates, with the exception of Howard Brown, are credentialed by the International City/County Management Association.