Ray Stevens Challenges Dave Sullivan Over Palm Coast City Council Seat Timing Dispute

Palm Coast City Council member-elect Ray Stevens says Council member Dave Sullivan misrepresented his position at a council meeting last week by suggesting that Stevens is “okay with everything,” as if to mean that Stevens is not interested in assuming the seat until November. 

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Stevens wrote the city manager’s office after hearing Sullivan’s statement the day of the meeting, copying every member of the council with the exception of Sullivan. “If true, the man is either lying or he is delusional.” 

Stevens is pursuing various avenues to challenge Sullivan’s remaining in the seat. 

Stevens was elected to the seat in the November 2024 election. He soon had grave health issues after that and, after missing a few meetings, resigned in late February. The council appointed Sullivan out of 13 applicants in mid-April 2025. Stevens recovered and ran unopposed for the same District 3 seat in this year’s special election. On June 12, he won the seat when qualifying closed. He immediately signaled that he would like to return to his seat without waiting until November, since he had twice been elected to it. Sullivan just as immediately said he would remain in the seat until November. 

Last Tuesday, the issue came up again in the opening public comment segment, and Sullivan again said he was not resigning. 

“My understanding is that if you were to abdicate the seat, then it would trigger the charter requirements of us going through an appointment process,” Council member Ty Miller said, “which would leave the seat open for a month or two, probably. So it just further complicates that.”

“That’d be five minutes, Councilman Miller,” Mayor Mike Norris said. The council is not required to search for a replacement. If the seat is vacated, it may choose to appoint Stevens immediately–as it appointed Bob Cuff immediately after the 2016 primary to the seat Bill McGuire had resigned. “If he was to resign, we appoint Ray because he’s won the seat. We have to go through a process. That would be the process.” 

Norris asked the city attorney to check into precedents. “We sure should stay with the precedent of previous councils and what they did,” the mayor said. “Nothing against you, Dave, but you know, Ray won the seat and it was his seat to begin with.” Jeremiah Blocker, the city attorney, pointed to the Cuff precedent, saying Cuff was appointed to a vacant seat at a time when the charter required an appointment within 30 days. 

“Problem is,” Sullivan said, Stevens “declined the seat. He should have taken a leave of absence, and then it wouldn’t be any problem. He didn’t do that. This council has had a series of people who have resigned before the end of their term. I’m trying to set the precedent that if you get appointed to something for a period of time, that you complete the assignment. And I think that’s more important at this point in time. I talked to Ray; he’s okay with everything.” Sullivan added that “precedent doesn’t hold any legal basis in this case.”

Stevens was not okay with everything. In his reading of the charter, his seating is due “at the next regularly elected election.” At the latest, he should be seated after the Aug. 18 primary, if not sooner, in his view. 

“I have consulted with the Supervisor of Elections who agrees with my position concerning the city charter and the two regularly [scheduled] elections in and for the city of Palm Coast,” Stevens wrote City Manager Mike McGlothlin’s executive assistant on July 21. “She gave me the appropriate forms to submit to the various state agencies and individuals which oversee elections, I intend to do so, and that in itself belies his statement. In addition what authority do I have to give Sullivan permission to extend his temporary appointment or anything else for that matter.”

In an email to FlaglerLive, Stevens wrote that Sullivan had approached him after a Republican Executive Committee meeting and asked him why he had resigned. “I told him because under the circumstances I thought it was the ethical thing to do and I proceeded to tell him I was told by the doctors that I might not be leaving the hospital. So after about a month of laying on [my] back and collecting a paycheck and causing the city council to be deadlocked on certain issues I decided to resign. He went on to say that he was doing the right thing and following the city charter. I refuted that and told him what the charter said on filling vacancies. I said to him it is clear that your period of appointment ends at the next regularly scheduled city election. He said he was staying. I told him you do what you gotta do, no hard feelings. That was the sum and substance of the conversation.”

In an interview today, and after hearing Stevens’s email, Sullivan agreed with Stevens’s interpretation. He clarified his “okay with everything” statement, saying he did not mean to suggest that Stevens was okay with Sullivan’s decision or Sullivan’s interpretation of the charter. 

“I did say that I had spoken with Ray, and what I was saying was, when it ended,” Sullivan said, “I shook hands and said that’s my position. I don’t think I said that he agreed to it. I think what we agreed to was, you told me your position as you depicted in after the REC meeting, and I told you mine, and therefore that was my view of it. He knows where I stand, and I know where he stands. So that was that.” 

Sullivan today reiterated his position that he would not resign until November, and that he considers the November 3 election as “the next election,” not the Aug. 18 primary. But if state election officials render a decision in Stevens’s favor, “at that point, I gracefully step aside,” Sullivan said. “But as far as I know, in talking with the council, I don’t have to do that.” 

He was insistent on showing the example that once appointed to a seat, a member should complete the assignment. “I guess I’m going to be the bad guy,” he said, “but I’m doing it on my principles, my honor, and my principles of life, and what the law states.”