Note: this is the first of two articles on today’s “Meet the Mayors” event. See the other: “Development Is Devouring the Tree Canopy. Palm Coast and Flagler County Are Trying to Catch Up With Protection.”
Palm Coast Mayor David Alfin today hinted that he may not be supportive of going back to the rolled back property tax rate this year as he was last year. He said there may be also be new, alternative revenue sources that don’t rely on the property tax. But he did not say what those would be except in the most cryptic terms: “Eco Dev.,” he wrote in a text, abbreviating the words for “economic development.” “I will share as soon as I can,” he added.
The city has had very limited options to raise new revenue aside from existing, familiar tax revenue sources–the property tax, its share of gas tax revenue, and its share of an existing sales surtax imposed by the county.
The only new revenue sources discussed in recent years at the council could be an increase in the sales tax, which the county would have top approve. That’s a non-starter in an election year, and certainly too late to generate revenue for the coming budget year. The city could also impose either an electric franchise fee or a public service tax (both of which other cities in the county do impose), though Palm Coast’s attempt on three occasions to do one or the other in the last dozen years crashed, burning some of the council members along the way.
“Economic development” is an amorphous term that, when associated with tax revenue, suggests long-term, trickle-down revenue that may not be noticeable in immediate budgets. That was not the reach of the question posed to Alfin during today’s “Meet the Mayors” event hosted by the Flagler County Association of Realtors.
The event was moderated by Richard Goellner, the association’s public policy chair, with help from Eddie Land, who quietly cautioned those asking questions during a Q&A segment to “be nice” and “not political”–then asked the one political question of the day himself, one of the savviest of the day. He prefaced it by noting how Palm Coast went back to its rolled back property tax rate last year–the rate that in essence denied the city government upwards of $2.7 million in new revenue, and that left all city taxpayers paying the same amount of taxes this year as they did last year–or less for many, especially the homesteaded.
“I’m sure nobody wants to raise taxes during an election year either,” Land said. “Everybody wants to get elected and we have different candidates running for different positions.” But, he said, “isn’t it smarter and more effective financially to slowly go up? Because we have to pay for things. Things cost money. But we keep rolling back or staying flat. How are we not raising the tax base? I mean, look, I don’t want to pay higher taxes. But you have to pay for these services that we’re getting.”
Alfin acknowledged that it’s campaign season–then campaigned in the next breath (he’s running for re-election) by telling Land that he’d been the one who made the motion to go back to rollback last year. He said he did so “to tighten the belt of the city to its smallest notch so that we could then look at this year without that pressure on what it is we need to do.” He also acknowledged that “there is a need for additional revenue.”
Alfin, after all had been resistant in a recent council workshop to an effort by fellow-Council member Ed Danko to again go back to rollback this year (Danko is running for a County Commisson seat). The council agreed only to strive to make that a goal, a contorted way of saying: we’ll do our best, but we’re not bound by it. (See: “With One Exception, Palm Coast Council is Not As Eager for Repeat of Rolled Back Tax Rate This Year.”)
So was his answer to Land’s question a clearer endorsement for opposing rollback this year? Not necessarily, he said: the revenue doesn’t have to come from the property tax. “We’re working on projects right now which would generate new sources of revenue which could in fact pay for some of these service levels to be maintained,” Alfin said–without explaining what those sources would be, until his cryptic text.
The “Meet the Mayor” Q&A hour also included questions about crime and law enforcement staffing: the panelists included Sheriff’s Chief Mark Strobridge, who noted an uptick in local crime after years of decline but attributed it to thefts from developments under construction. There was a question about the move of Fire Station 22 in Palm Coast and its existing building’s historical value. Alfin supports a historic preservation approach, but he also wants to alleviate parking problems at the nearby Community Center, which would argue for razing the building.
There were questions about congestion in Palm Coast, and some answers: “road widening, turn lanes are both in process and being planned,” Alfin said, and the future six-laning of State Road 100 is now 10th on a list of state projects for the region. There was a question about Flagler Beach’s run of major projects under way, from beach rebuilding to seawall building, giving Mayor Patti King a chance to weigh in at her first “Meet the Mayors” event.
A question by Dave Ferguson, a former Palm Coast City Council member and a current member of the city’s planning board, was relayed in interviews to some of the officials after the Q&A segment. It was about what sort of new jobs could be expected beyond government, the local hospitals, education and the housing industry, which have been the mainstays of the local economy aside from lower-paying tourist jobs.
“I’m currently working with a very, very large group, which would be light manufacturing, which would be different than those,” Alfin said, again giving only hints. He also mentioned what he called “the data center project”–the plan by Atlanta-based D.C. Blox to build an internet data center in Town Center. The center would be the landing zone of up to eight undersea data cables that would make landfall in Flagler Beach. Afin is barred by law to reveal it in any detail, or even mention the company’s name, though the plan has been detailed in these pages. (See: “Company Planning Huge Data Center in Palm Coast for Undersea Internet Cables, But Flagler Beach Trips Over Easements,” and “Data Company Wants to Use Veterans Park to Land Undersea Cables; Flagler Beach Wants Appropriate Payment.”)
“The data center project, which I’m hoping will get to the finish line,” Alfin continued by way of examples of different jobs, “Even though in itself it doesn’t create a large number of jobs, I do believe it precipitates or brings others that would like to be in close proximity.” He said it would be unfair to knock health care down from the list of new jobs. “Health care services and also the youth sports activity that we’re bringing to the area does create additional jobs as well,” he said. “There are many related industries that would like to be a part of that.”
For Commission Chair Andy Dance, the county airport and the properties around it have “huge opportunities for economic development.”
