91 Apply for Palm Coast Manager But Number Deceives: Interim Denise Bevan and Other Qualified Candidates Shun Turmoil

There’s an explanation for the misfire. When the job posting initially went up, it was disseminated–among other sites–through Indeed.com, the job-posting website, and mistakenly key-worded the word “manager” rather than “city manager.” That appeared to have drawn many applications from people who thought they were applying for a mere manager’s job in numerous fields. “They did receive quite a few applications that had the key word ‘manager,'” a city spokesperson said this evening. That key word stayed up for the first 24 to 48 hours. “They figured out what was happening and they fixed it.”

Missing from the applicants’ pool: Denise Bevan, the interim Palm Coast city manager since early June, Jerry Forte, the Palm Coast fire chief and interim assistant city manager since June, or a single other candidate from within the city’s ranks. The absence of those names is as telling as the largely–but not entirely–middling quality of candidates the opening did attract. It suggests that those who have some familiarity with the City Council as currently constituted may be steering away from an environment that has repeatedly proved toxic for the last city manager and interim and continues to be an unpredictable, at times bullying and uncivil environment.

Councilman Victor Barbosa attempted to fire Matt Morton, the previous city manager, in an overt display of slanders and unsupported accusations. Morton soon resigned, accusing Councilman Ed Danko of pressuring him to make false statements against ex-Mayor Milissa Holland. Danko soon threatened to fire Bevan and the city attorney, and continued to make false statements about the ex-mayor, and would fired Bevan if a different mayor had been elected in the special election in July. The council’s temperature has not necessarily ebbed and it remains a deeply divided panel, its balance again in jeopardy as the 2022 election approaches: Barbosa and Council member Eddie Branquinho, one member from each side, will not be running for re-election (Barbosa is aiming for a county commission seat). Unless the next manager is hired with a unanimous vote, that manager will in less than a year answer to a council with a majority of members who would not have voted for her or him.




There were two local candidates of note: Phyllis Edwards, a Palm Coast resident and highly regarded former superintendent of schools in Georgia and assistant superintendent in Flagler, and a previous applicant for that job. But she has no experience in county or city management. And Jim Manfre, a lawyer in private practice and two-time Flagler County sheriff, who’s applied for the Palm Coast and Flagler Beacjh city manager’s jobs previously, never making it to the short-list stage.

The number of candidates who are currently employed as city or county managers is a reflection of the pull, or desirability, of a job opening, since these candidates are willing to have their current employment be jeopardized by the publicity of job-seeking elsewhere. But only six such candidates have applied for the Palm Coast job, and not a single one from a local government anywhere near Palm Coast’s population.

Jan Bagnall, for example, is the city manager of Fort Meade, a city with a population of less than 10,000, but she’s been so only since April, and has no previous city or county managing or assistant manager experience. Raymond Bossert Jr. is the village administrator of Port Edwards, Wis., but Port Edwards has just 37 village employees and a $5 million budget. (Palm Coast’s recently adopted budget, including utilities, is $249 million.) Brian J. Geoghegan, manager of Howell Township, N.J., and Bradley Gotshall, township manager in Lower Paxton, Penn., each are in towns with populations of just over 50,000. Scott Moye has been the Ware County manager in Georgia since 2016; the county has a population of 35,000. Two other candidates still employed as town managers oversee populations of 12,000 and 1,000.




Shawn Henessee was the county manager of Clark County, Washington, a county the size of Seminole County in Florida (480,000 inhabitants). He has an impressive resume. But aside from the irony of his state of origin–the same as that of Morton–Henessee resigned, much as Morton did, “amid recent doubts about his future with the county,” as a local paper reported, much as Morton did. He has not worked since.

So Palm Coast’s fix of the Indeed.com glitch was not necessarily a significant improvement. Only 36 of the 85 candidates have at least some managerial government experience, though that experience varies widely from small departments to departments far afield of the city administration they’d be taking over.

The initial stages of the application process were handled by Renina Fuller, head of human resources at the city. She briefed the city council this morning on the results of the search, saying it had drawn 91 candidates, though not all of them seemed to have submitted actual, complete applications (one candidate submitted a poem).

Fuller’s staff will provide complete binders–with hard copies–of all the applicants to the council members individually on November 9, along with suggested interview questions. The council will hold a special meeting on Nov. 17 at 6 p.m., where the council members will each have weeded down his choices to the top five. So there would be a maximum of 25 candidates. But the council will at that meeting attempt to narrow down those short lists to five. Given the council’s rift, the process is expected to be more contentious than it was, say, in Flagler Beach, whose commission recently hired William Whitson, or in Bunnell, where Alvin Jackson was hired–two choices that were the consensus choices of each commission, and that have proved to be solid fits.




Alfin, the Palm Coast mayor, today tried to set the stage for a more collegial process. “I’ve been wanting to say this, and whether you all agree or not I’m going to say it anyway,” he said–a preface that spoke as loud, if not louder, than what followed: “It would be a perfect situation if at the end of this process, we were all able to unanimously choose a city manager. I have no person in mind, but I’d just like to instill that thought, if it’s possible, if we could have unanimity in our choice. It would be a great pat on the back for the future of the city of Palm Coast. I just wanted to get that out and say it as well.”

Alfin then immediately summed up the process ahead, not giving his colleagues a chance immediately to react to what he’d said–or perhaps not wanting to risk the silence that might have greeted his statement. At any rate, in what amounted to silence deferred, none of the four other council members referred to the statement when they had a chance moments later.

The table below lists 85 candidates, each name linked to the candidate’s resume and other submitted documents, with a brief overview of each candidate’s origin, current position, and government experience. While Fuller said there were 91 actual submissions, not all included all required papers, and any missing candidates from the list below will be provided by Wednesday.

Palm Coast City Manager Candidates, 2021