Flagler School Board is Doing Nothing to Encourage Applicants for Seat Vacated by Sally Hunt. Here’s How to Apply.

It’s a startling contrast: when the Palm Coast City Council lost one of its member to a resignation on Aug. 23, it immediately publicized the opening, took applicants, interviewed them, and on Tuesday–38 days after the resignation–appointed Charles Gambaro to the seat.

After prevaricating for over a year, Sally Hunt resigned her School Board seat on Sept. 20. The board discussed the matter for the first time Tuesday—for four minutes. It had no clue what to do next, and has no intentions of informing the public that the application window is open or facilitating applications with so much as a helpful link from its website.




Of course there’s a key difference between council and School Board appointments: the council appoints its own, when an election is not an option. On school boards and county commissions, a vacancy is filled either by an election, if the vacancy occurs within a certain time frame, or by gubernatorial appointment. Though she’d announced that she would resign months ago, Hunt waited to resign until after the window for a replacement by election closed. While the governor will make the appointment, that does not keep the local School Board from publicizing the opening and encouraging individuals to apply, since the applicant must be a Flagler County resident (but not necessarily a resident of District 1, which Hunt represented).

“It will just be the four of us until the new board is installed, and then we will have to wait until a governor’s appointment to fill that seat,” Will Furry, who chairs the board, said at the end of Tuesday’s workshop. He appeared to have no intention to shed more light on the matter, or suggest that the district could at least fill the information void about the appointment process. He did not appear to know what that process was.

“Will, has anybody spoken to the governor’s office?” Board member Colleen Conklin asked. She has been on the board since 2000. There have been two appointments since, one of them when she chaired the board, in 2007, following the resignation of Jim Guines after 11 years of service. At the time, Conklin called Gov. Charlie Crist’s office to hurry up the process. Crist appointed Charles Gambaro to the position 10 weeks after the Guines resignation–the same Gambaro the council appointed to its vacant seat this week.




Two years later Peter Palmer, who was ending his third year on the School Board, died on Aug. 17, 2009. Crist took four months to fill the appointment. He did so with Trevor Tucker, who would go on to win election the following year and serve two terms until he was defeated by Christy Chong in 2022.

Furry said he “received acknowledgment from the appointment office” that the governor had received Hunt’s resignation. “I have made some calls, and there was some conversation about moving that forward. I did check again just before this meeting, and those conversations have halted because of the storm,” he continued, referring to the disruptions of Hurricane Helene, “so I think right now we’ll be in a pause mode for a little while, and hopefully I’ll have more in the future.” But the focus was on the governor’s office–not on drawing out applicants.

Today, the district’s chief spokesman said the district is not involved in the process. “Everything at this point is in the appointment’s office with the governor. There’s nothing that the school board or the school district does at this point to advertise the opening or publicize the opening,” Don Foley said. “It all happens from the appointment’s office.” He added: “We don’t have the process yet either. It’s something they handle.” Foley said he was still investigation the matter and would know more by Friday.

Board member Cheryl Massaro was surprised at the lack of information, or at least some way for qualified local residents to apply without having to guess how. “It would be easier if the board opened it up,” Massaro said, approving of a possibility for the district’s website at least to have a link to the governor’s application page. Massaro herself has gone through that process, but people have to know what they’re looking for to get there. “Anybody can go online if they know where to go.”




The application process is handled by the gubernatorial appointment office. But first, candidates must fill this questionnaire (also available at the foot of this article). Then they must attach the document to a different online questionnaire on demographic and personal information, here. A detailed, almost step-by-step explanation of the process is here.

Tucker was on the Education Foundation–the district’s non-profit arm–when a fellow Education Foundation member urged him to apply in 2009. At the time the application process was all done by hard copy. He had to request the application from the governor’s office. He filled it out and mailed it. He eventually got a call to travel to Tallahassee for an interview. He was one of two applicants in the waiting room. He was called in.

Crist and his chief of staff interviewed him–15 questions, none resembling a litmus test, Tucker recalled today. They wanted to know his background, why he wanted the appointment, what made him feel qualified. Crist happened to be a Rotarian, like Tucker. The governor asked him to recite the club’s famous four-way test. Tucker did. “That was the only odd thing about that whole interactions,” he said. He obviously passed. A few days later, he got the appointment.

He did remember that living in the district was not necessary, but also hat it was very rare that the governor would appoint someone out of district. “They usually want to have someone in the district, that way if they do a good job they can run for that seat.” That may be why Tucker demurred when asked if he was interested in applying again, though clearly, if it’s qualifications the governor was looking for, he’d hardly do better than Tucker, with over nine years’ experience on the board. But DeSantis endorsed Chong over Tucker two years ago.




A Tampa Bay Times analysis of 309 DeSantis appointments for boards and agency positions that were brought before the Florida Senate for confirmation in 2023 “noted DeSantis’ penchant for appointing news-making, polarizing figures to both high- and low-profile positions. But it also found that one in four of his appointees had been chosen by a previous governor and were reappointed to the role by DeSantis. In many instances, DeSantis relied on seasoned movers and shakers who have run in government circles for years.” Appointments to local governing boards, however, can be very different and heavily influenced by local references and lobbying.

DeSantis has been known to take months to make appointments. The appointment, once it is made, will fill out the Hunt term, which ends in November 2026.