Back from the brink, Ray Stevens is going to give it another shot.
The former Palm Coast City Council member is going to run in the 2026 election to reclaim the seat he resigned when he took severely ill just weeks into his term, after winning the District 3 seat runoff with 58 percent of the vote (and making past the primary by two votes).
Stevens resigned in late February, when he was in the hospital, in critical condition. “I didn’t think I was getting out,” he said today. “They put me in ICU and told me and my wife I should put my affairs in order, and do I want to sign a DNR.” (DRN is the acronym for a do-not-resuscitate order.)
The council appointed Dave Sullivan, who had just completed eight years on the County Commission, to complete the nearly two years in Stevens’s term before the next general election. Sullivan, 83, said from the start that he would not run for the seat in 2026. Stevens, 76, feels he has a job left to do.
“I’m doing a hell of a lot better after being in the hospital for two months,” and in a wheelchair for two weeks. “I’m almost back to what I was before. But a hell of a lot better.”
“People have urged me to run again,” he continued. “I have a job to finish. I made promises that I want to fulfill. I’m not happy with what I see happening here in Palm Coast with this basically uncontrolled development and or poorly planned development. Like I said the first time, if you’re not happy with what’s going on, you’ve got to get off he bench and get in the game.”
Stevens looks back on his victory last November as a spur to go for it again–same campaign signs (which are currently with his former rival, Mark Stancel, who lost the primary by those two votes and became friends with Stevens during the recount), same cards, same message. But this would be his last campaign.
“I’m going to run to finish my term,” he said: the term would be two years, not four, since the election is for the completion of that term. If he wins, he does not plan to contest the 2028 election. “I have other things, family and other interests other than the city council, so it would be just to finish my term. I feel it is incumbent on me to at least attempt to fulfil my promise. Like I said, I have a job to finish.”
He spoke about the council since his departure, describing it as “counterproductive, on both sides,” and taking a step back from the controversies swirling around Mayor Mike Norris. “The mayor was doing what he thought was best. I don’t really have any personal feelings about it,” Stevens said, referring specifically to Norris’s lawsuit against the city to get Charles Gambaro off the council (Norris lost). “I like all of them so I’m just going to leave it at that, but the entire scenario as I said is counter productive, they’re not getting anything done, it’s constant bickering, I don’t know, I want to get back on the council and maybe lend an air of stability to the operation.”
Stevens acknowledged the council passing a rate increase for utilities–“got to pay for it somehow,” he said–but stressed that before resigning, he’d cautioned the council that people would “rebel” with the increase. He thought there’d been too much development, too fast.
Stevens had cautioned against “pushing the envelope” when Norris last December sought a legal opinion about Gambaro’s appointment. But he found the judge’s decision “confusing,” especially as it went beyond ruling Norris as having no standing–a position that beguiles Stevens: any registered voter should have standing, he said, if the voter feels disenfranchised, and Norris is a voter.
Still, he added, “I have nothing against Charlie, I like him. To bring it up–it was a done deal. To push the envelope, if somebody wanted to sue, then we’ll address the issue. It turned out to be the mayor who wanted to sue. That was unforeseen by me.”
Stevens also gave Norris the benefit of the doubt in the mayor’s closed-door meeting with the city’s top two staffers, when he asked for their resignation. The incident triggered an independent investigation, requested by the council, that found Norris to have interfered with administrative purviews and violated the charter. Stevens disagrees, calling the investigation “hogwash.”
“It was nothing but a bunch of innuendoes, unsworn statements,” he said (the statements have since been sworn.) “Did it indicate the mayor has poor people skills? Yes. Some of that stuff, the nail polish and such, not the sort of things you want to talk about with employees.” But for the encounter with the interim city manager and the chief of staff to be unethical, he said, there would have had to be a quid pro quo. “It might have been handled in a better way, what that way would be, I don’t know at this point,” Stevens said. “As I said, I’ve been out of the loop, but I’m starting to read what’s going on and getting back in a better position to make decisions.”
So he’s getting back in. “What’s changed in a year and a half? I’m the same guy.”
Stevens is the third candidate to have filed to run for a City Council Seat. Tony Amaral Jr. and Jeani Whitemoon Duarte have filed to run for the District 2, the seat held by Theresa Pontieri. Pontieri said she is remaining in local politics, but has not said whether that would mean running again for that seat. She may be mulling a run for the County Commission. Charles Gambaro announced a run for Congress, opening the District 4 seat in that election. Potentially, three seats will be up in the 2026 elections for the council.
Leave a Reply