She’s done it once before and has been talking about doing it again for half the year, but this time she appears to mean it: Flagler County School Board member Sally Hunt submitted a resignation letter by email early this afternoon, making good on a pledge that by November she’d be gone from the seat she’s occupied less than two years.
Hobbling with self-inflicted wounds from one of the most turbulent school board tenures in recent memory, Hunt claimed her “early departure from the Board was not an intended or desired outcome.” Many of her actions in her months on the board, and her frequent absence from it, from school functions and from contact with constituents, suggested otherwise.
Though she was intent on resigning at least since earlier this year if not sooner, she delayed the resignation long enough that voters would be denied the right to fill the remainder of her term by election. Instead, the seat will be filled by a governor’s appointee, a process that could take months as Gov. Ron DeSantis has not made filling such vacancies a priority, though he’s taken an especially close interest in school boards. The appointment opens the possibility that the person Hunt defeated, Jill Woolbright, could be returned to the board, if Woolbright’s residency makes her eligible. What is certain is that once filled, the seat will ensure an unusually strident conservative majority, at least until the next election.
Hunt resigned weeks before the last meeting of first-term Board member Cheryl Massaro and six-term Board member Colleen Conklin, who has been serving since 2000. Both will serve on their last regular meeting next month, when they are expected to be celebrated by the board and the district. Hunt’s resignation is a pointed snub to the two board members with whom she most differed after being elected as a Democrat on promises that, at the time, appeared to align with Massaro’s and Conklin’s policies.
That turned out not to be the case. Stunning and disappointing her followers and voters, Hunt quickly joined Will Furry and Christy Chong, the far more conservative wing of the board, and orchestrated what amounted to the firings of Cathy Mittlestadt, the superintendent who preceded LaShakia Moore, and Kristy Gavin, the board attorney who’d served since 2007. She often worked behind the scenes with then-Principal Paul Peacock, who was himself eventually discharged by the district, and at one point machinated to bring back a former principal to take Mittelstadt’s place.
Her engagement in the district was very limited. She snubbed the graduation ceremonies of Flagler Palm Coast High School and Matanzas High School both years she served, as she did most major public functions, and this year stopped attending most workshops in person, phoning them in–whether from her home in Palm Coast’s W Section or from the home she and her husband bought in Georgia was never clear. Sometimes she was simply absent. She attended most monthly evening meetings. But as of last month, she had not been to Rymfire Elementary, the school to which she was assigned as a liaison all year (her security badge never recorded entry there all year, according to the district) and she met with Moore only twice.
More prone to use the first person singular more often by far than any of her colleagues whenever she spoke, Hunt thrived on grievances and resentments, as she did in her resignation letter. She patted herself on the back even as she decried in characteristically vague terms having been among board members who were made a “target” of what she called “the manipulation of truth and the lies that continue to be shared and accepted.”
Commending Furry for his “leadership,” Hunt said she believed “you and I have proven to be a great example of politics as it should be.” There did not appear to be a hint of irony.
The Palm Coast Observer first reported Hunt’s resignation this afternoon, Hunt having copied her resignation email to the paper, as she was wont to do with media. When she first resigned, it was to FlaglerLive that she announced the news, in a phone call, saying her letter was on its way to the governor’s office. That was in March 2023, when she was trying to avoid responding to a public record request. She then un-resigned after a series of phone calls with others, and resumed her checkered tenure on the board.
Hunt’s resignation leaves the board hung on potential 2-2 votes, which mean that any such motion would fail. Next month Janie Ruddy and Lauren Ramirez, who were elected in the August primary, will take the place of Conklin and Massaro. Massaro had endorsed Ramirez. Ruddy is aligned with Conklin’s policies. So the balance on the board may remain what it was, without Hunt, whose occasional swing votes–like one this week–could surprise.
Moore was in discussions with the board attorney on next steps, including the process of replacing Hunt. “I hoped that she would finish out her term and continue to serve in the position she was elected for,” Moore said in an interview. “It will definitely have an impact on the board, but I’m hopeful this board and the new board coming on will work collaboratively to move forward the business of the school district in the most efficient and effective way.”
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Looking at the coming months, Moore said she did not see “anything that should be very divisive. It’s really a lot of standard things that are on board the next two months, but things always come up,” whether they are brought up by individual board members, or when events develop unexpectedly. “Of course having a board of only four will have an impact if we’re not able to get a majority vote.”
The “on-boarding” of Ruddy and Ramirez has begun, Moore said, and will ramp up in October, so the two new members are prepared when they are sworn in.
“My focus is going to be on how do we continue to move forward, the board and this district,” Moore said. “”We’re going to need our four remaining board members to be committed to doing that.”
