By Brad West
I wanted to take a moment to express how utterly irresponsible and how much of an embarrassment to this community your behavior was at the recent State of the City, as it has been since you took your seat on the Palm Coast City Council.
What this community witnessed on April 10 at the State of the City was a spectacle best described as a childish temper tantrum. That event is intended to highlight city achievements within the community to residents. But it is often used by businesses considering coming here. So to use that event to air your personal grievances did a disservice to every single resident of this community and those actually working to bring businesses and organizations here–in other words, doing the very thing you claim to want to do.
Yes, we have challenges. We always have and we always will. Show us a community that doesn’t have challenges. It is important to be honest about that. But unlike past mayors, you missed a key opportunity to highlight what the city is doing to address those challenges. Instead you chose to just complain. What does that gain anyone?
You are not “president of Palm Coast.” You are one seat and one vote on our Council–a Council right now consisting of three other members working very hard to do what is best for this community, with no help from you.
While they were working to find ways to reduce the water rate increases and debt load, you were busy trying to boost your embattled political popularity by pulling a ridiculous “moratorium” stunt. While they travelled to Tallahassee advocating for this community for state support you hid here in your home. And while they and the city administration were working hard to present to the community and outsiders who we are, where we are, and where we are going, you stood up before cameras and audiences and disgraced your fellow Council members, city staff, and community members.
You are not a victim of anything other than of your own actions. The complaints against you are worrisome: Good that city staff had the courage to speak up. Good for Council Member Charles Gambaro and local media for bringing the allegations to light for public awareness. Good for the Council Members that supported investigating these matters further, ensuring due process and giving you the chance either to clear your name or be held accountable.
It is absurd to suggest that anyone is conspiring against you. Your position and role do not afford you, any elected official or anyone in a position of leadership the right to abuse, harass, and demean others or be above accountability. Even accepting your claim that there was no malice behind your misfiring “jokes” and demeaning statements, it isn’t others’ responsibility to accommodate your strange brand of humor or misplaced exercises of authority as it is your responsibility to control yourself and maintain professionalism in all circumstances.
You are not a victim of past councils and others that you keep insisting “failed” this community. The past councils since incorporation in 1999 have all faced enormous challenges and have done a great deal of hard work to bring us to the point we are today. To suggest nothing has been done in the past 25 years is utterly absurd and completely false, to not say contradictory of your own reverence for the city you call home.
I have seen all that’s been accomplished in the 21 years I’ve lived in Palm Coast. Yes, there is more to do and there will always be more to do. That is simply the nature of cities and communities. It never stops. There’s no such thing as taking a breather so we can catch up. One of the best lessons I learned in life, that you might want to give some thought to, is that when you point the finger at others for your problems, three fingers point back at you.
Enough is enough. You raised your hand to be elected mayor and you were. The position calls for selflessness and service to community, not catering to your ego, bowing to your agenda, or allowing you to be above accountability.
You have a choice to make at this point. The responsible and mature thing to do is to truly ask yourself if you are honestly up to and able to fulfill the duties of your position on the council, to serve this community to the best of your ability, and to do so within the requirements of the city charter.
Because that is what the residents and the hard-working business community are entitled to from their mayor, a title you have been bearing neither honorably nor responsibly on their behalf.
Brad West is a Palm Coast resident.
