- November 18, 2024
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Flagler County Commissioner Barbara Revels will chair a council that help the County Commission decide what to do with the historic county courthouse.
The seven-member council, made up of specialists not yet selected, will have four months after its June 16 formation to make a formal, nonbinding recommendation to the county.
“I’m not a fan of committees, especially ones that are going to give us an opinion, and it is rare indeed that we take the opinion of a committee — we usually make our own decisions anyway,” Commission Chairman George Hanns said at a June 2 commission meeting. “But I’m going to go along with our board because it’s the logical thing to do. And at this point, our backs are to the wall and we’re pressed into doing what we’re doing.”
The unanimous vote at the meeting to select a council — a suggestion first made by Commissioner Revels — is the latest episode in the saga of the historic county courthouse, which the county gave to the city of Bunnell after the city spent years talking about acquiring it.
Once Bunnell had it, though, the city decided it couldn’t afford to repair and maintain the old building, and asked the county to take it back. The county did, in a 3-2 vote with Commission Chairman George Hanns and Commissioner Frank Meeker voting against.
But Flagler County, having made alternative plans for a new Sheriff’s Operations Center on the belief that Bunnell would be using the large courthouse building, now has no clear use for it.
“When I’m at the supermarket, when I’m at the park, people say, ‘Don’t spend any more tax dollars on the thing.’ That’s what I hear over and over and over again,” Commissioner Nate McLaughlin said.
Hanns said the county has spend hundreds of thousands on the building already, and Flagler County Administrator Craig Coffey said the county “didn’t place any caveats such as ‘no taxpayer money whatsoever’” when it took the building back.
Commissioner Revels, a general contractor and realtor and the president and owner of Coquina Real Estate and Construction, said she was interested in chairing the council because of her professional background.
“I think the estimates that were put together for the city and the county were highly elevated, and it’s because they’ve got to cover all the bases so there are a lot of contingencies and what-ifs,” she said.
Revels said the committee would need to evaluate not only who might use the building but also “run the numbers on what it’s going to take to bring that building to be opened up.”
Potential members would also need to be screened, she said, “so committee members would not plan on coming in and wanting to access space and be a user, or be a bidder or a subcontractor.
“We’ve heard from a whole lot of people in the community who jumped up real fast and said ‘I wanna I wanna. I want to be on the committee but I also want to be a vendor,’” she said.
The county needs to form the council by June 16 and is accepting applications, Coffey said.
The council needs:
• An architect or design professional;
• A general contractor, preferably with commercial construction experience;
• A real estate professional with commercial leasing or property management experience;
• A mechanical contractor with HVAC or some other mechanical specialty;
• A non-realtor with experience in space procurement, relocation and acquisitions for public and private entities;
• A citizen at large with any other profession not mentioned above might contribute something; for example, historical or financial expertise.
To apply, contact Christie Mayer at 313-4001 [email protected]
