Until this year, you could count the number of formal town halls hosted by members of the Palm Coast City Council over the previous two years on one hand. Then suddenly, there were town halls enough to make Palm Coast look like a New England city in exile. Mayor David Alfin liked them so much he asked his colleagues to “double down” on more. They did not object, though he was doubling, tripling, quadrupling down, with the city administration’s help.
There’s a scheduled Alfin town hall on Friday, and right after that, there’s going to be a town-hall style meeting with the mayor at City Hall’s flagpole every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. (before the heat index goes to triple digits).
Alfin happens to be running for re-election. Some of his opponents and others, including one of his colleagues on the council, have noticed the town hall’s timing, and the city’s assistance, and are recoiling.
“Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve received numerous Instagrams, Facebook announcements, etc. of Mayor Alfin meeting at the city hall on taxpayer property, to meet with the mayor at various locations, including the Southern Rec Center,” Cornelia Manfre, a candidate for mayor, told the City Council today. “Use of public forums for self promotion: I object, and I’m asking for this to stop.”
That started an discussion among council members later in the meeting, while the administration was taking notes, that resulted in a request to the City Attorney to draft an opinion about the legality of the town halls. The attorney’s opinion is already known: the town halls are perfectly legal as long as they steer clear of politicking. But he’ll put it in writing.
The opinion will not address perceptions. But that’s what appears to be the council’s problem at the moment, and, more specifically, Alfin’s problem.
“I certainly won’t stop just because an opponent suggests that they don’t like it,” Alfin said this evening. He intends to continue to “fight and be creative ethically” through such means of connecting with residents.
Last year the council agreed as part of its goals for this year to hold individual town halls. That took place in March and April–one for each of the council members. When the members took stock on April 16, they were elated. Council member Theresa Pontieri had just had hers at the dog park at the newly opened Southern Recreation Center. “I really encourage more residents to come out to the town halls that we as city council members have committed to, it’s your opportunity to ask questions and get answers,” she said.
“I heard nothing but good things about it,” fellow-Council member Cathy Heighter told her, before plugging her own. “So I do believe that these town halls are effective for our council. And I am looking forward to my first town hall.”
“The more of these townhall engagements that we can possibly have throughout the community, the better we are, I think,” Alfin, who’d had his at Panera Bread, said.
Three of the town halls featured boxed lunches, at a cost to the city of $400 to $500 each, though none of the participating council members (Nick Klufas, Ed Danko, Heighter) objected. The two others were nowhere near that cost. Pontieri’s featured dog treats and coffee from Dunkin Donuts at minimal expense, Alfin’s just coffee, and it appeared more than halfway through the town hall. Few drank. The city marketed the town halls on its website and social media platforms, and through releases to the press.
On May 7, Alfin thought the town halls had been too successful not to repeat. “I would ask each of our city council members, if they would be willing, if we could double down on the number and schedule of town halls going forward, as soon as city staff can kind of put them together,” he told his colleagues. “Is there any objection to that?”
There wasn’t.
On June 14 the city issued a release announcing the June 28 town hall with Alfin at the Palm Coast Southern Recreation Center, and another one on July 10 hosted by Lauren Johnston, the city’s interim manager, and Chief of Staff Jason DeLorenzo. That town hall was scheduled, city Spokesperson Brittany Kershaw said, because at all the previous town halls, city staff seemed to get almost as many questions as the elected officials, and the city wanted to give residents a chance to speak with the top administrators ahead of budget season.
The plan was to have a different council member hold one town hall per month. Danko had been tentatively scheduled for August, Klufas for September, Pontieri for October, and Heighter for November. Danko begged off. He had a problem with the timing. He told the city administration to put off his town hall until after the election, because he didn’t want it to look like he was electioneering. The others hadn’t been scheduled with hard dates. “None of the council members were involved in setting up the schedule,” Kershaw said.
Then came yet another release on June 18: “Beginning July 6th, Palm Coast residents will have a unique opportunity to engage with Mayor David Alfin through weekly “Share with the Mayor” events. Held every Saturday morning from 8:00 to 9:00 AM, these gatherings will take place at the outdoor seating area by the flagpole and garden at Palm Coast City Hall, located at 160 Lake Avenue. Each week, residents are invited to discuss various topics in a relaxed, open setting. No subject is off limits, and everyone is encouraged to share their thoughts, concerns, and ideas directly with Mayor Alfin.”
It doesn’t take savvy strategy to note the timing and the run up to the Aug. 20 primary, which promises to be a far tougher fight for Alfin than his previous campaign during the special election of 2021.
“I find that a stretch,” he said of the criticism about timing. To him, “Share with the Mayor” has been an ongoing form of engagement with residents, businesses or anyone interested in speaking with the mayor from the earliest days of his mayorship. He’s held them in people’s driveways, in his office, at different places in the city. The Saturday event only consolidates the practice in one place.
But Alfin had also noticed Flagler Beach Commission Chairman Scott Spradley host his own weekly town-hall style meetings every Saturday and told Spradley he wanted to do likewise. The comparison is not exact.
Spradley’s meetings started very small, with a couple of people at a time, always in his own law office downtown Flagler Beach, only a few months after he was elected. There was never an appearance of electioneering. He’s never used city resources, either to host them or to publicize them. He uses his own Facebook page and word of mouth. There’s coffee and pastries, but either Spradley or a private-sector sponsor picks up the bill (last week it was R.J. Santore of Fireworks by Santore, the Palm Coast firm.)
Over the past 38 town Halls, the events have become more popular, have drawn attention, even special guests like Flagler Beach City Manager Dale Martin or County Commission Chairman Andy Dance. Last week’s drew 17 people, not including Spradley, a reporter or the guest–Darryl Boyer, who is running for a state House seat (which may have been a mistake on Spradley’s part: now every candidate is going to be banging at his door, with a finite number of Saturdays to accommodate them. That’ll require exclusionary judgments, and potentially implicit favoritism).
Judging from last week’s town hall, nothing about its first 54 of 62 minutes, when Spradley held the floor, is remotely political, ideological or polemical. It’s nuts-and-bolt information about the city, an explanation (without opinions) of the coming commission agenda, answers to residents’ concerns. Even Boyer’s few minutes were essentially Boyer presenting his biography and shortlist of goals at the Legislature, without a word of criticism or belligerence about anyone: he could read his crowd, and the spirit of the meeting. Spradley knows how to run a meeting: he holds his town halls to 60 minutes (with a couple of minutes for injury time), and did so Saturday. One word defines his town halls: organic.
It’d be difficult to apply the word to Alfin’s Saturdays at this point, only because those gatherings suddenly sprang up, two months from the election, even though when he did hold his town hall at Panera in April, there was no hint of politicking.
“I did receive a couple of calls this weekend from a couple of your many opponents for the job of Mayor,” Danko told Alfin this morning–he couldn’t resist needling him–“sort of wondering why the city was kind of promoting your events, town halls and the flagpole thing.” He spoke of the optics, and whether the events are legal, “because we are very close to an election and it does give the appearance that perhaps we are supporting myself or Mr. Klufas or the mayor.” He asked Klufas and Alfin to do what he’s doing: hold off on town halls until after the election. (Manfre in a release of her own late this afternoon lent support to Danko’s call.)
“I would have to give deference to our founding fathers, where the town hall concept is deeply woven into our flag and into the very history of our country,” Alfin said. “It would be up to each city council member to be very careful about not using such a platform to campaign. But we have all up here, every one of us has voted repeatedly for additional transparency, and you’ve heard it from the public about more transparency. I don’t know how you could be more transparent than to make yourself available to your public on any question they want to ask now. If they should ask a question that goes offline with regard to a campaign, then you have to be good enough to say hey, that’s not what this is all about. So appreciate the comment, but I’m not okay with yielding to what has been a foundational pillar of this country and our democracy and our republic since its founding.”
But it hadn’t been a foundational pillar of Alfin’s mayorship for its first two and a half years, and the concern was about the use of tax dollars to enable these meetings so close to the election. Kershaw said the Saturday events at the flagpole will not entail any kind of goodies bought by the city.
“Without having case law as long as you are using [the town hall] for a public purpose that’s not into elections or campaigning and you’re using [it] for the service of the city, I see no issues,” Marcus Duffy, the city attorney, said. He will draft a memo anyway.
“I got an email from staff this morning wanting to reschedule my next town hall. So I understand the concern,” Pontieri said. “But I think that it’s misplaced.” She said she would be part of the consensus for the legal memo, “but I do have a problem spending our taxpayer dollars for a memo for case law. Furthermore, there are certain things that we cannot do as a candidate such as using the city logos, the county logos, things like that, in an official capacity. And those are explicit in the current law.”
That was a message to Danko on the optics he’s telegraphing: his campaign Facebook page welcomes visitors with a video that immediately flashes the city’s logo, followed by the county’s logo, neither of which are permitted on campaign materials, as they give the appearance of endorsement. Obviously, neither the City of Palm Coast nor the County Commission have endorsed Danko.
If the same argument can’t be made as explicitly about Alfin’s weekly appearances at a flagpole bearing the city’s flag–he wouldn’t be standing there asking people to vote for him–it can nevertheless be inferred: would his opponents be afforded the same weekly privilege and city announcements? Alfin does not appear to see the red flag waving alongside the city’s.
