The Palm Coast City Council is considering moving all its meetings to evening sessions. That would end a 25-year custom, when the council has held one of its business meetings in the morning, and one in the evening, with all its workshops scheduled in the morning.
The possibility is prompted by some council members’ assumption, disproved by the record and other local governments’ experience, that evening meetings would increase attendance and participation.
The council is divided. Mayor Mike Norris and Council member Ray Stevens favor all-evening meetings. Council members Theresa Pontieri and Charles Gambarro favor the current set-up, with the recent addition of an evening workshop to go with the morning one.
Council member Ty Miller was not inclined one way or the other when the council first discussed the potential change last month, though he noted that some people work in the evening, and city staffers work all day long, with evening meetings extending their workday. Whenever they’re scheduled, Miller wants to “streamline and make these council meetings not be a seven-hours-long” session.
Stevens prompted the debate at the end of his first meeting on Nov. 19, with Norris joining him. Stevens motioned to move all meetings to the evening, and to move up proclamations segments to 5:30 p.m., so as to shorten the business (or voting) portion of meetings. But the change can’t be done outright. The rules are written in an ordinance that would have to be amended, workshopped, then voted on at two subsequent meeting.
The council is having that very discussion at its workshop on Tuesday, with the Nov. 19 discussion as an indication of how it might go. But there appears to be some misconceptions among new council members that meeting timing has much of a bearing on attendance.
“Night meetings provide the larger portion of the citizens of the city to come and participate,” Mayor Mike Norris said. “I’m sure balancing kid-work life schedule and stuff like that is not too hard.” He said he would like to have all meetings at night.
Norris was not quite accurate about the “larger portion of the citizens.” Half the city’s adult population is not in the workforce, according to employment and Census figures. (Last month, just 49,000 of the county’s 97,000 adults held jobs; the figure doesn’t distinguish between full and part-time workers; the city accounts for 85 percent of that population.) That hasn’t resulted in an appreciable different in who fills council seats aside from a few regulars.
Even at workshops, there has not been a public clamor for more evening meetings. There are public grumbles only when the council opts to take action on a controversial issue that falls in a morning meeting, though typically those issues require votes at two successive meetings, ensuring that at least one of them is held in the evening, thus capturing both demographics: those who prefer to attend during the day, and those who prefer to attend in the evening.
The same pattern applies at other local government meetings. Bunnell and Flagler Beach governments both hold all their twice-monthly business meetings in the evening. Bunnell meetings are seldom attended by others than those with business before the commission, or by those involved in proclamations. Flagler Beach has the most engaged local citizenry of any local government. But even there, commission chambers are often empty, whether the commission meetings are short or long. Flagler Beach’s chamber fills when a specific issue draws residents, though even a recent proposed utility rate increase did not fill many chairs.
“I do take pause with the comment that it’s just easy for people to juggle around families at night. It’s not,” Council member Theresa Pontieri said. “I have one child, and it’s not easy. So we need to be respectful and consider all of our residents.”
She also noted that at the previous evening meeting, there was hardly anyone in attendance. Then-Mayor David Alfin even quipped about how he didn’t even need to call for public participation, since there was no public in attendance. Pontieri was pointing out a reality of council meetings. It isn’t the timing of meetings that draws attendance. As is the case before other governments, if residents have issues of concern, they show up. If not, they don’t.
There are also some misconceptions about city staffers’ workdays, or staffers’ ability to “flex” their time to account for evening meetings.
Norris said high-level employees are salaried, so they can offset their hours. He even asked for a show of hands from the directors in back of the room, asking how many of them had addressed the council at a meeting. “So regular hourly employees don’t typically attend these meetings, and people that are salaried know to offset their hours,” he said.
“Yes, staff does try to flex their time,” Interim City Manager Lauren Johnston said, “but I mean, honestly, we have more work than we know what to do with sometimes, and we’re here late and we’re back here early the next morning.”
More pointedly, the city manager said a large number of consultants, contractors and other professionals the city works with, and who are required to attend workshops and meetings to make presentations and answer the council’s questions, prefer morning meetings, since they work normal day hours. If the council were to hold all its meetings at night, it could find it difficult to get some of these professionals to show when needed.
For most of its history, the council had scheduled alternating meetings almost every week, typically with two morning workshops a month and two business (or voting) meetings, one in the morning, one in the evening. That ended during former Mayor Milissa Holland’s tenure, when one of the workshops was eliminated. As a result, workshops turned into epic-length meetings. The council just recently, at Pontieri’s urging, resumed holding the second workshop, moving it to the evening.
Pontieri would support starting the proclamations at 5:30 p.m., but keeping alternate morning and evening meetings and workshops. “The intention is well-placed to try to moving the meetings to night time, but at that point we’re just precluding a different area of our residents.” Gambaro agrees with that balance.
Whatever the council decides, it would have to be approved by ordinance, with two readings of the ordinance.
An Informed Senior says
It’s a ridiculous idea to come into the City Council and try and make drastic and unproven changes like Norris is trying to do in my opinion.
I’ve been attending the Council meetings quite often and this article is correct in stating that meetings are only well attended in the daytime OR in the nighttime when there is an issue that folks want to speak about during the public offering of three minutes to further their particular cause or be part of a proclamation or citizen’s academy graduation.
More than 50% of the Palm Coast residents are senior citizens and driving in the darkness around the City Hall even at 6pm in the winter is not a joyful event. Especially trying to maneuver Town Center and Old King’s Road is dangerous.
If someone wants to share a problem with the Council, send them an email. I know personally that Councilwoman Pontieri responds to her emails and Nextdoor comments. Hopefully the other council members will too.
We don’t need to make grand gestures to the Council.
There are several ways we can communicate so leave the meetings times remain as they are and focus on the really important issues in our City instead of creating issues that are not important and only divide the City residents and the Council.
JC says
Remember younger people do have jobs and can’t attend the city council meetings like senior citizens in the AM hours. If you do them at night, then younger people can attend more of them
A lot of younger people that I know do think that city council meetings are only catered to the senior citizens and younger people aren’t welcomed. They also think the city is bias against younger people where all the newer items like Racketball courts are aimed for senior citizens and not younger people.
Senior citizens might disagree, saying I don’t want to drive at night. But end of the day there is a big segment of the population who can’t attend the AM meetings since they have jobs (and those jobs can’t always let them off early).
An Informed Senior says
What y’all are missing the point is that every issue that is addressed in a daytime council meeting has a second reading at the nighttime meeting so it’s a balanced arena for every issue. Daytime workers can attend any nighttime meeting and anyone available during the day, including night shift folks, home-based folks, housewives and househusbands, and yes, even seniors can also choose to attend daytime or even nighttime meetings of which there are two of each!
Let me hold that twenty fella..... says
Then stay home, Bunnell has only night meetings and they have many people that show up and have been doing that for 20+ years nobody complaining about it.
I have business and can’t make daytime meetings.
You on the other hand have nothing to do during the day. You can watch it on YouTube live at night.
celia pugliese says
Dear “Uninformed” Senior. I am one of those residents attending many meeting and do it with my lately special needs family member. Your insulting” grand gestures” is a petty mean way to describe the sacrifice that most residents attending the only evening meeting or am, endure to bring their “unresolved serios issues looking for a solution” . Also you ” creating issues that are not important” is your skewed stingy vision when you do not seem to have the serious problems that we residents speak of in our 3 minutes to be resolved. They are not grand gestures and who will endure 4-7 cxhours meetings to see if our problems caused by city wrong decisions will be resolved? Who cares to spend our lives in these meetings? Because we attend and speak up some issues then are resolved. You do not have any…lucky you then do nit attack those of us that have serious problems to be resolve. How would you like you backyard, pool or even house flooded with mud? Vehicles speeding 60 ft from your bedroom in never ending lines? Never being able to hold a conversation in the phone (while working) and knowing 60 lbs. of lead are dropping all around the city besides the danger of a crash from world wide students to practice touch and goes from our FIN Airport? Your do not have those problems good for you. We do and we need the meetings in the evenings even if they want to ad one. Most people working do not attend am meetings as much as they are attended at 6 pm. And lets keep public comments at the meeting start and not at the end.
And those pack in my back proclamations that take for hours in the meeting need to start earlier and keep them shorter, as they do not make things look better or resolve serious problems.
Samuel says
I think its a great idea to move the meetings to evening hours more citizens will be able to attend that way.
David Schaefer says
Look this is the only way things will get done . This question has been asked before by many people I vote evening meetings only your out voted sir…..
Nancy N. says
There’s A LOT of class bias showing in the comments assuming that more people will be able to attend if both meetings are in the evening. There’s an underlying assumption that everyone works something akin to a 9-5 schedule and gets off work in the evening, and that just isn’t the case. Retail, medical, first responders, and plenty of other workers have schedules where they work outside traditional “office” hours. The most equitable solution is to offer a variety of times so that everyone, regardless of their work schedule or disability (ability to drive at night, for instance) can have a chance to attend to address the council .
TR says
IMO, it would work better for the meetings to be held at night. I have been wanting to go to a few meetings, but with having a business was not able to attend the daytime meetings.
Long Time Resident says
Quite a few years ago the council meetings were live televised. A former Palm Coast council member got into legal difficulties. The station doing the televising, publicized the legal difficulties in their news broadcast, along with a video of that council member’s illegal transgression. The Palm Coast council fired the television station. Maybe we could get a TV station back again for live council meeting broadcasts or use face time or zoom or something more modern to allow citizens to stay home and still participate in the meetings.
Critical Eye says
Once again Norris shows his complete lack of leadership skills. His ego is getting in the way of the REAL issues that need to be addressed. Because be has no idea what he’s doing or the right direction for our city
Brad W says
For me evening meetings is not about more public participation. The real benefit is opening things up for more candidates. Working professionals, other than real estate and attorneys, typically do not have the ability to make day meetings each month.
Kendall says
Reading these comments and the lack of comprehension of what was written in the article makes it very clear how America elected a wanna be oligarch insurrectionist to the presidency this year.
feddy says
Finaly, a trump comment. He lives in your head rent free. The people voted, he won Joe and kamala lost.
Connie Sparks says
Who cares about customs…. Twenty Five years. It’s time for a change just like how we revamped City Council. Also the people should have the Vote for Gambino. Again trying to deceive the people of Palm Coast!! The morning meetings are EMPTY…
Joe D says
I’m in Flagler Beach, so what Palm Coast does is pretty independent of me. However, to be fair to ALL the residents both with day availability or evening availability, I think the rotating Day /Evening meeting schedules would be the most fair for everyone. There were times in my 43 years as a nurse that I worked in the evening, so the assumption that all evening meetings would allow more “working people” to attend is making a GENERAL ASSUMPTION.
It seems that a rotating schedule of day/evening meetings and workshops with proclamations starting at 5:30 for evening meetings might be a fairer spread of citizen availability. No ONE time schedule is going to satisfy everyone…we all have to make COMPROMISES from the area of local government all the way to Congress, the concept of which apparently has been forgotten completely since 2016!