A diminished and humbled Palm Coast City Council met for the first time this morning since last week’s wipe-out election and decided to appoint a replacement for Cathy Heighter on Oct. 1.
Heighter abruptly resigned effective Aug. 23, citing personal reasons. She was less than two years into her first term. The council’s appointment will fulfill the remaining term, through November 2026, and will have the right to run for that seat.
Last Tuesday Mayor David Alfin lost his re-election bid and Council members Nick Klufas and Ed Danko lost their bids for County Commission seats. Their choice for the Heighter seat will nevertheless leave their imprint on the council for at least the next two years. The only hold-over come December, when three yet-to-be elected council members are sworn in, will be Theresa Pontieri, who was elected in 2022.
Pontieri’s preference was to hold an election for the Heighter seat. “I want this to be a democratic process if possible. I don’t know if it’s possible,” she said, or practicable even if possible.
It is possible, but not practicable. The supervisor of elections has to send the ballots for the Nov. 5 general election to the printer by Sept. 6. That gives candidates for the Heighter seat barely a week to qualify. They would not have time to qualify by petition. That would require some 500 signed, valid petitions. So they’d have to pay a qualifying fee of nearly $3,500.
“I don’t want our council seat to be bought,” Pontieri said. She was also concerned about “special interests” buying the seat.
The rest of the council agreed, as it did to this timeline: The application for potential appointment will be available on the city’s website, and on this website, by this afternoon. The application deadline is 5 p.m. on Sept. 11. The council will interview the candidates in a public meeting, individually, on Sept. 17. The public will have the opportunity to weigh in at a workshop on Sept. 24–that workshop will be held in the evening to give more people the opportunity to attend–and again on Oct. 1, when the council will vote on the appointment.
It took more than an hour to get to that point–“I feel like this could have been a 20-minute conversation,” Klufas said–with various complications and possibilities discussed in turn, only to be dismissed as impracticable, impossible or against the charter.
“You have to go with the city charter,” Paula Hatfield told the council. “You can’t make your own decisions because the public wants you to make them. So let’s try to find some way for the community to all pull together, accept and respect the people that we voted for to make the right decision.”
The council at no point discussed the possibility of a special election, as was the case when Alfin was elected in 2021, shortly after the unexpected resignation of Milissa Holland a few months into her second term. The 2021 special election cost the city $128,000.
“Potentially this could be a 10-year seat, so the decision being made here is significant,” Alfin said. The two years the appointed member would serve would not count against term limits. Council members may serve two consecutive terms. Alfin said the same about his own prospects when he was elected in 2021, envisioning a tenure that could last 11 years. It lasted three.
A handful of people addressed the council about the coming appointment. Some were in favor of a special election, or in favor of putting off the appointment until the new council is seated the first week of December. Ralph Lightfoot, a member of the local mosquito control board, suggested giving the six candidates in the city runoffs a voice in the decision.
Mike Norris, one of the two candidates in the runoff for mayor, suggested a five-day window for the applicants not two weeks. Ray Stevens, in a runoff for a city council seat, supported a special election.
“I would encourage you to gracefully bow out of this,” Dennis McDonald, a perennial candidate and political operative who has scarcely bowed out of anything–and who owes government upward of $100,000 in fines and interest as a consequence of filing frivolous ethics complaints against local officials–told the council.
The public comments elicited more questions from the council. But Marcus Duffy, the city attorney, said the charter was clear about a 90-day window for appointments, and does not refer to a special election. “It’s my advice that a special election unfortunately is not an option,” he said. There was also the possibility of tacking on a special election to Bunnell’s municipal election in march, but that possibility, too, was discarded.
“Timing is our biggest obstacle right now,” Duffy said.
“Is it an obstacle that can be overcome or not?” Alfin aksed.
“From a legal standpoint it doesn’t talk about it,” Duffy said, referring to the charter. “I’ve never seen a candidate have a week to qualify.” Alfin said a special election was not a possibility.
Council members had some concerns about applicants moving into the district just to qualify for the appointment. That’s not unusual: Pontieri herself did so ahead of her 2022 victory, but she said the process should be transparent enough to make all those variables part of the council’s decision.
“If the public doesn’t like the person this council appoints, in two years, they can unelect them,” Danko said.
The comment drew derisive titters from the audience in a half-full (or half-empty) chamber, an unusually large turnout.
It is still not clear whether the council to be seated in December will have the authority either to remove the new appointee and appoint a member of its own choice, or override the appointment by way of a special election. ton be set next year.
“I recognize the issue that we just had an election, and that the election results were what they were and that now we’re having an appointment done by those who unfortunately were not successful in their elections,” Pontieri said. “I recognize that gravity.” She said the appointment process would still be the best way to ensure a solid appointment without a rushed election.
The application will appear here when the city makes it available.
