Those who wish to win public office must start somewhere, and when they start, their lack of experience and unfamiliarity with issues can be very pronounced at first. That gap was apparent between the two candidates currently in office and the 10 who hope to win office at the Flagler Tiger Bay Club forum Thursday evening at the Palm Coast Community Center.
Three candidates are running for the District 2 seat of the Palm Coast City Council–Tony Amaral Jr., Jeani Duarte and Jimmy Hengy. Four are running for the District 4 seat–Dylana “Dee” Galery, John Kvederis, Ramon Marrero and Darlene Shelley. Both are open seats, ensuring that a newcomer will be elected.
A special election was held for the District 3 seat, held by appointee Dave Sullivan. Ray Stevens, who had won the seat almost two years ago but resigned because of health issues, won it again uncontested. He did not participate in the forum.
Three candidates are running for the District 2 seat of the County Commission–Greg Feldman, Theresa Pontieri and Raymond Royer. Pontieri is serving out her first term as a Palm Coast City Council member. Two candidates are running for the District 4 seat–Anna Jones and Leann Pennington, the only incumbent in the entire group, and currently the chair of the County Commission. Drew Moss, also a candidate for that seat, did not participate, though he was invited and was in the audience.
Tiger Bay inexplicably–and unfairly to the rest of the candidates, who expended resources, money and time to qualify that a write-in does not–included in the forum Denise Calderwood, a strategic write-in for the District 4 seat. Calderwood’s write-in candidacy ensured that only Republicans may vote in the District 4 primary. Had Calderwood not filed, the race, with three Republicans, would have been open to all voters. FlaglerLive does not cover the candidacies of write-ins, and will not do so here.
School Board candidates were not invited. Tiger Bay Club President Jay Scherr said that would make the forum too unwieldy. A forum organized by the Chamber of Commerce, the Home Builders Association and the Flagler County Association of Realtors next Tuesday features candidates from all three races–Palm Coast, County Commission, School Board–but broken up in one-hour segments for each. The forum is at FCAR’s building, 4010 East Moody Boulevard, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Thursday evening, an audience of about 100 at the Community Center and many more online, on YouTube and on WNZF heard amiability and earnestness from all the candidates and occasional incomprehensible or incoherent digressions from some. But the format did not make it easier on the candidates, each fielding three random and at times misdirected questions that prevented any kind of rhythm and lent itself mostly to bromides and generalities: with a minor exception at the very end, the panelists asking the questions did not ask follow-ups and the candidates did not challenge each other’s answers at any point. The County Commission and City Council candidates were mixed in, as were the questions, as if those who prepared the questions did not know the difference between city and county offices.
As civil as it was, the forum was also humdrum and lacked surprises or mostly lacked much substance, with some exceptions: Pennington and Pontieri showed their mettle as seasoned candidates with four years’ work behind them, so they could point to specific achievements and speak the language of knowing officials. Alone among the newcomers, Amaral spoke as if he were an incumbent, which in some ways he has been, attending as he has every City Council meeting and workshop and participating in most discussions in public comment segments.
The word “crossroads” was mentioned half a dozen times. There were several general questions about development, but not a single question about the so-called “westward expansion,” which would double Palm Coast’s population over the next 30 years if the Master Planned Development proposal is approved in the next few months–and if the planned 22,000 housing units are built and filled in that span. There were a few questions about the proposed constitutional amendment that would raise the homestead exemption to $250,000 by 2028, severely reducing local government revenue, but none that pinned candidates on how they would navigate that financial drought.
Here’s a brief summary of the forum, taking each race in turn.
Palm Coast City Council, District 2
Tony Amaral described himself as a 43-year local resident and “a small business owner who may have built your home or your neighbor’s home.” He was asked about diversifying the tax base. “ Our biggest issue is land. Palm Coast doesn’t have industrial land. We’ve got one site,” he said. He is looking for more. He did not mention the 22,000 acres slated for the western expansion, which include 3.24 million square feet of industrial land.
Asked what council decision he may have opposed, Amaral showed his command of recent issues, citing a proposed E-Section development of 71 single-family houses that caused some controversy as it changed significantly between first and second reading, becoming an affordable housing proposal. “Great concept, it’s there, but there was just so much information that wasn’t readily available to the public, it wasn’t very transparent,” Amaral said. “I would have made a motion to table it, to get the information, to get all the documents to support it, break it before, and then we can analyze it again.”
Jeani Duarte, who also attends every meeting and addresses most issues, repeatedly spoke of unspecified issues with the city charter, problems with the data center under construction in Town Center, and her strong opposition to the “Loop Road” cutting through the western expansion District 2. She wants the wetlands protected. “My vision for that area,” she said of the area planned for the western expansion, “is maybe a luxury rail line, one that’s attached to a huge, nice historic museum that our historical society can engage in, maybe do some camping sites, some horseback riding back in there, but we need to protect that.” She also wants access to the beach. It isn’t clear what she meant, since Palm Coast residents are the plurality of visitors to the county’s beaches.
There is always a bit of a huh? element to Duarte’s discourse, as there was Thursday evening: “We need swimming,” she said in answer to a question about quality of life. “We are right by the ocean. If we have a hurricane, we’re in a lot of trouble. So we need to be able to implement programs to get our children learning how to swim, whether we start something and open up what pools we do have to the rest of the community.”
Jimmy Hengy, the third candidate in that race, grew up and worked in South Florida before retiring in Palm Coast. “I’ve seen well thought-out planned development, and then I’ve seen rampant overdevelopment that wasn’t so well thought-out.”
He was asked about the impending cuts to government revenue, and how he would compensate. “Probably would need another source of revenue to offset what we may face,” he said. He paused. “Good question.” He paused. Then he retreated to the default answer elected officials and candidates typically give: fire, police and utilities would be prioritized. But he also hinted at the sort of cuts he’d consider: “We’d have to first look at possibly parks and recreation, we’d have to look at workforce to see if we have any redundant jobs.”
To support local businesses, he spoke of creating an “incubator program” to help startups and small businesses. (Palm Coast had such a program but got rid of it.) He could not answer–as no candidate or elected official could answer–how he would keep utility rates in check. “Unfortunately, we’re in a quagmire with our water utilities,” he said. “We have the $248 million bond that was taken out to upgrade our water facility systems that unfortunately are not going to handle the 6,000 lots, infill lots that were approved for development, or an additional 13,000 lots that are already approved for development. That $248 million bond is not going to address that.” (The city would disagree: the bond is intended to address current and future development, if still not in full.)
Palm Coast City Council, District 4:
Dylana Galery says she is “a proud UCF graduate with a bachelor’s degree in political science” who comes from “a military family that taught me the importance of service, integrity, and accountability.” Those are the foundations, she said, defining “who I am and why I’m running.” She currently works with deaf and blind students but previously was a national field operations manager supporting large remodeling stores. “I’m used to seeing budgets, I’m used to breaking them down and getting them taken care of,” she said, in answer to the questions about her qualifications for the council job.
But she twice demurred when asked more specific questions, such as how she would protect small businesses “as larger corporations continue moving into the area” (Galery might have legitimately asked: what larger corporations?) “As we all know, we’re all candidates up here, and we’re not going to have all the answers on day one,” she said. She’s been meeting with owners of small businesses and studying “what are we missing” and looking to Flagler Technical College, the school district’s trade school, to support small businesses.
What service would she cut, and what would she supplement? “I don’t have that answer for you right now,” she said.
John Kvederis, a Flagler Palm Coast High School graduate, likes to describe himself as “the homegrown candidate.” He’s run his own business since 2015 (Odd Job Connection, a temporary staffing agency). He speaks the language of consensus building.
He was asked how he’d “ensure that growth pays for itself through impact fees without pricing out long term working class families.”
Kvederis’ answer wasn’t clear: “We need to start holding some of the projects that are coming in here accountable. We need to find ways to build revenue from some of those contractors and find ways to fix our roads and develop our swales a little better to handle these kinds of things, we can’t keep putting everything off on taxpayers.” (In fairness, the question rested on a flawed premise: neither impact fees nor growth “pays for itself.” Market forces, including the shortage of housing, rather than impact fees, have been more responsible for pricing out first-time homebuyers than impact fees. But impact fees are the method through which builders pay their share.)
As for cuts to government services, “We need to look at where the money is being spent, where the most logical cuts would make sense, we need to reevaluate everything that’s going on in the city itself,” he said.
Ramon Marrero is an 18-year resident who’s been working with nonprofits since his retirement and just completed his service on the city’s Charter Review Committee (which, curiously, he did not mention all evening, though it is not a minor achievement).
Asked about his top three priorities for addressing flooding, stormwater management, and drainage, and how he’d pay for them–again, an uninformed question that seemed to ignore the city’s stormwater fee, set to rise to $39.10 a month by 2028, and $43 million stormwater management fund–he did not answer the question directly, saying instead that “I am definitely against any type of taxes or fees on our citizens on top of the burden they already have. So I would look for any other way, grants, bonds, whatever it takes to not put that burden on the citizens.” The city this year approved a huge bond issue to finance utility infrastructure improvements, but it could not do so without also sharply raising utility rates to finance the bonds.
He said he would “be the voice of consensus, listen and reach out, so that you can come to a common good.”
Darlene Shelley, who spent a career with Home Depot in customer service and loss prevention before retirement, was asked a very strange question: “Do you think it is appropriate for church leaders to comment publicly on current and or public policy decisions,” as if the clerical sector did not have as much of a right of expression as any other. Shelley handled it easily: “Everybody should have the right to comment on decisions.”
Rather than answer a question on how she would attract jobs, she pivoted to her own platform: “Since 2022 I have been a proponent against growth at any cost,” she said. “Development should work hand in hand with local businesses and local residents to provide the basic needs and services that we need as a community.” She would focus on protecting the environment. “It breaks my heart to see wetlands filled in for more development, for more incompatible growth, for more apartment buildings that we do not need.” Housing and rental costs do not support the claim that more housing, particularly rental options, is not needed.
County Commission, District 2
Greg Feldman, a Hammock resident and a Flagler County resident since 2005, was in law enforcement for 47 years. “I’ve watched some of the changes. I think it’s not an issue, but we have to work harder to make them more compatible with what’s here already,” he said. As a member of the Hammock Community Association, he welcomed a question about how he’d stay informed about issues there and elsewhere. “The most important thing to do, in my opinion, is to listen, because everybody’s opinion counts for something,” he said, promising open houses during his tenure.
On job opportunities, he said “we need to develop a more diverse tax base, we need some light industry, we need something other than just commercial,” he said–words repeated by most candidates, but seldom with a prescription on how to get there. Feldman proposed one way to keep residents from having to commute: “We need to provide the services that the younger people need, we need to have great parks, we need to have bike paths, walking paths, all those things that number one attract people, but more importantly, build a healthy lifestyle.”
In essence, he described what both the City Council and the County Commission have spent millions of dollars developing in the last several years–the city’s and county’s multi-use paths, parks and trails are the crown jewel of their public amenities–at times at a heavy price, as when the city’s splash pad was poorly built (an issue since fixed).
Feldman immediately recognized the softball question about how he’d support public safety. “This is a good one for me, obviously, having come from the law enforcement area,” he said, “but this county is in the top 1 percent of safe communities in the entire country, and that’s because of the sheriff’s office,” he said, referring to his previous employer. He noted that both his sons are firefighter-paramedics with the county. “Chief [Mike] Tucker from the Fire Department has a plan where he’s going to add a rescue every three years, that should keep us going. That should be enough,” he said, unless there is a population explosion.
Raymond Royer described himself as a veteran and a union man (steel, firefighting) who wants “the opportunity to become an independent player here” and “bring affordability back to this county.” To him, “planning and zoning has gotten way out of hand with these approvals,” he said, referring specifically to the Hammock. “The due process we have here in the county is not a fair due process.” He was critical of the annexations of Veranda Bay and Summertown into Flagler Beach, and of a development in Seminole Woods.
He was asked whether he’d “consider shifting local resources toward prevention, peer support, and diversion programs rather than a criminal justice response,” even though between the county and the criminal justice system, including the Sheriff’s Office’s extensive rehabilitation programs at the jail, that’s where money has been spent, beyond fixed jail costs. “I would say maintain what we have,” Royer said, supporting current sheriff’s programs.
Theresa Pontieri, an attorney, a four-year City Council member and the mother of a 26-month-old boy (not at all in that order), relied on her record in the past four years to present herself as a candidate with three priorities: economic development, public safety and controlled growth. “We’ve really prioritized public safety, we prioritized infrastructure, and we’ve done a lot of really good things in the economic development area, which we desperately need in the city and county,” she said in her opening statement, dropping in an “America first” nod to the more ardent conservatives in the audience, but also, locally, “putting our residents first.”
Unlike other candidates, she was asked the most specific, technical question on taxation: would she support special taxing districts known as municipal service taxing districts or municipal benefit taxing units–essentially, hyper-localized taxing districts where residents pay a specified tax for a specified reason, whether it’s beach protection, fire service or drainage. The county has such districts in place, and is considering additional ones, especially in light of the homestead amendment.
Pontieri said she would avoid taxing districts on principle, but not absolutely: they would be last options. Even then, they should be based on data. “You really have to figure out if you’ve got the data to support the amount that you’re charging and who it’s going to serve, whatever it is that you’re looking to provide an MSBU or an MSTU for.”
Asked about transparency and public trust in government, Pontieri did not hesitate: “Anybody following the Westward expansion has seen me literally pound my fist from the dais,” she said, “because there were some things that were tried to be snuck in right under our noses for the Westward expansion, and I said, ‘Not on my watch.’ It takes a lot of guts to do stuff like that, and I commend a lot of my council members who’ve stood by me through that, because there are millions of dollars on the other side of that table, and it can be very threatening.” She was referring to home builder and Chamber of Commerce-type lobbies that oppose her.
“But it takes bold leadership to say: this is not right, we need to fix it, and to continue to follow up on that and be accountable.” She added: “The number one thing that we need to do as government officials is be bold and step out and do what you’re supposed to, do the diligence, do the research, and make sure you’re speaking up when you see that something’s not right.”
In terms of economic development, she wants a more strategic “education pipeline” that feeds into what will work in the city and the county over the next two to three decades. “Let’s now start to implement that for the next 20 to 30 years, and that takes getting people from the chamber, people from the city, people from the county, people from the school board,” she said. “To the question that we had earlier, How do we get everybody to work together for the benefit of the cities and the counties? That’s how.”
County Commission District 4
Anna Jones, a local resident since 2023 who gained attention speaking against the county airport’s flight schools–a theme she did not once touch on Thursday evening–opened with a brief self-introduction that included an odd pledge: “I will fight for excellent schools.” But she is running for County Commission, where the only intersection with schools is the annual budget for school deputies the county contributes.
“We all came here for the beauty and quality of life, and right now that way of life is at risk,” she said. “Unplanned growth is straining our roads, our environment, our schools, and our budget.” Impact fees, she said, “are not enough” to pay for roads and services, in answer to another misinformed question: impact fees can never be used for services.
The few questions she faced did not go to her favored themes, as when she was asked how she would balance the county’s grants to nonprofits–an infinitesimal part of the county budget–with other responsibilities. Nonprofits, she said accurately, “get the crumbs, which is unfortunate.” If the budget were to be cut by 10 percent, she said she would ask for a “forensic audit. There’s so much wasteful spending, that’ll eliminate more than 10 percent right there.” She did not give an example of wasteful spending.
Leann Pennington, a native Floridian and incumbent county commissioner, emphasized public safety, conservation and local autonomy.
Asked about controlling urban sprawl, she said “my main concern is the erosion of home rule around what we can do to protect agriculture.” She was referring to a new law that would “allow agricultural enclaves to turn into residential without even coming in front of boards, so that is a big concern out west.” Pennington’s district represents Flagler County’s vast, rural west side. State government, she said, “hasn’t done enough to protect the farmers.”
Pennington, too, was at the receiving end of softballs that denied her the chance to speak on more substantive issues–her successful advocacy that led to successful grants and appropriations for a new Bull Creek Fish Camp, for example, or the new Expo Center that doubles up as the county’s hurricane shelter at the Fairgrounds, for example. Instead, she was asked about cooperation between local governments, an aimless question that could only be answered one way: “We work every day on small issues, big issues,” Pennington said. “We have joint planning meetings, and everything’s been very, very collaborative. So it’s an everyday thing,” whether it’s the new mural in Bunnell or the old courthouse’s leasing to the School Board.
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