- November 17, 2024
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Anne-Marie Shaffer describes herself as a concerned citizen fighting to make the city’s government more responsive. “I’m a mom, I’m a wife, and I’m a resident of 17 years in Palm Coast,” she said. She’s running, she said, because “I want to see a City Council and city management that is responsive to the citizens. … I want to see them be better stewards overall of our taxpayer money.”
Shaffer is home-schooling four of her five children (the eldest is 22) and runs a Christian home-schooling academy called Freedomschoolers Academy.
She is a member of the Ronald Reagan Republic Assembly and was elected Republican state committeewoman for Flagler County in 2012.
In 2012, she made headlines by bringing a lawsuit against a candidate for sheriff, John Pollinger, to get him removed from the ballot as a Republican. The lawsuit failed, but statements Shaffer made during the
case, in which she referred to Pollinger as a “RINO Republican” and said she opposed him on grounds of “party purity,” drew ire from some fellow Republicans.
She has been vocally critical of City Manger Jim Landon — who she said she thinks “doesn’t value the citizens” — and of the City Council, which she said “seems to ask all the right questions and come down on the wrong side of issues.” She could not provide any specific examples.
She said she felt that Netts opposed her, but could not give examples of why. “You get gut feelings, I mean, you know people,” she said. “You don’t have to have concrete evidence that somebody doesn’t want you there. I know him well enough to know that.”
Economic and business issues
Shaffer mentioned eliminating red-light cameras as one of her top priorities. She said she would like to see the city get out of its contract with camera company ATS, which would end in 2019.
She criticized the City Council’s decision to build City Hall — “It seems that they’re bent on building something that the people don’t want, and we don’t have the economic climate to support that
endeavor,” she said — and said that she would like to make the city more business-friendly by streamlining the permitting process and minimizing what she called “a lot of obstacles” for new businesses.
“You just get a sense from the people … they’re tired of dealing with the city,” she said.
Culture and recreation
Shaffer said she feels the city hasn’t done enough to provide recreational opportunities for its residents.
An indoor soccer league, she said, once tried to rent space in the city, but “the city wouldn’t let them,” she said, because the space was zoned for manufacturing. She did not know if the league had applied to have the zoning designation changed, or applied for an exception.
She said she was not sure what services were currently offered at the Palm Coast Community Center and that it has “been a while” since she’d checked, but that when she did, “whatever was offered, it wasn’t of interest to our family.”
As for arts spending on the part of the city, she said she preferred addressing economic problems first “before we can give more to the arts program.”
Leadership, weaknesses and strengths
Shaffer said she has shown her leadership skills as a volunteer. “There’s no use being involved in something if you’re not going to do something worthwhile,” she said.
Shaffer said one of her flaws is that she wishes she were “quicker to think sometimes; my thought processes, I wish they worked a little faster; I wish I was quicker on my feet. I am someone who likes to contemplate questions, probably overly. I like to take time and examine things,” she said.
Speaking about where she feels she has an edge over opponent Heidi Shipley, Shaffer said that she has more experience in local politics.
Previous press coverage of Anne-Marie Shaffer:
Click here to view previous Palm Coast Observer stories about Anne-Marie Shaffer, here to view FlaglerLive stories and here to view Daytona Beach News-Journal stories.
