- November 17, 2024
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UPDATED 1:40 p.m. Oct. 27 to correct first paragraph.
The Flagler County Canvassing Board and an independent state elections observer waited for about 15 minutes in the middle of a board meeting Friday morning while Elections Supervisor Kimberle Weeks disappeared into another room to hold a radio interview on WNZF, deriding the County Commission and the city of Palm Coast.
The interruption came after the board had checked 552 ballots in one room, and all of the board members except Weeks reassembled in the Canvassing Board meeting room to hold a public comment period and approve meeting minutes.
Weeks had mentioned, earlier in the meeting and after County Commission Chairman and Canvassing Board member George Hanns had warned the board that he might have to leave early for a 10:20 a.m. doctor’s appointment, that she had something to take care of for 10 or 15 minutes at some point after 9 a.m., Commissioner and new Canvassing Board alternate Barbara Revels said, “but it was not told to us what it was.”
While the rest of the Canvassing Board waited around the board table, Weeks appeared on WNZF radio, at first mentioning how many absentee ballots had been canvassed — 552 today, and 6,900 to date of the slightly-more-than 11,000 mailed out — but then criticizing the county and the city.
She said the county had requested an independent state elections observer because “they’re trying to make themselves look good by making me look bad.”
“What does (County Administrator) Craig Coffey and most of the Board of County Commissioners know about conducting elections?” she said.
She also criticized County Attorney Al Hadeed’s position as Canvassing Board attorney — she had already tried unsuccessfully at an Oct. 17 meeting to have him removed — saying, “I believe it’s a big conflict of interest to have your county attorney anywhere near your elections.”
Then she complained of events being held at the Palm Coast Community Center during early voting hours, saying, “There’s just no respect, and that is a public building funded by taxpayers.”
WNZF’s David Ayres asked her if she still liked her job. She replied, “I must, to put up with what I’m putting up with.”
When Weeks returned from her radio appearance, Canvassing Board Chairwoman and County Judge Melissa Moore Stens, at Revels’ request, had it read into the record that Weeks had disappeared to hold a radio interview.
“I think that had it been a family matter, or a doctor’s appointment, or something to that degree — but to have the Canvassing Board sitting there waiting, while she was doing a phone interview, was, I think, what upset myself personally,” Revels said.
Weeks said in an email to the Palm Coast Observer that other Canvassing Board members have left meetings to take care of non-Canvassing Board-related matters, and said her radio interview was “election-related business within the office.”
At what would have been the close of the meeting, Moore Stens moved to review Canvassing Board meeting minutes from the Oct. 17 and Oct. 22 meetings, which had been prepared by county staff in accordance with guidelines the Canvassing Board approved Sept. 12. But Weeks objected.
“As supervisor of elections, I’ve always done the minutes, I’m going to continue to do the minutes; I don’t need anybody doing the minutes for me,” she said, suggesting the board hire a court reporter to take verbatim minutes. “I won’t have another county office doing the minutes for this office that I am responsible for, so I reject these minutes,” she said.
“A majority of the board has rejected the minutes prepared by the supervisor,” Moore Stens replied. “And so, I’ve reviewed these minutes that were prepared.”
“What was inaccurate in the minutes that were proposed by the supervisor?” Weeks said.
“I already rejected them as not being compliant with our majority ruling from Sept. 12,” Moore Stens said.The Canvassing Board had voted Sept. 12 to set strict guidelines for the minutes because Weeks’ have taken an unusual format: Rather than a simple record of motions and actions taken, she has recorded meetings on her iPhone and transcribed long segments of dialogue into the minutes.
At an Oct. 22 Canvassing Board meeting, the board rejected Weeks’ minutes, with Moore Stens questioning the minutes’ accuracy and Hadeed pointing out content omissions and spelling and grammar errors, FlaglerLive reported.
But at the Friday, Oct. 24 meeting, Weeks again made her case for detailed minutes, saying she thought it was “very important to be transparent with the public so we have in the minutes exactly what transpired.”
“And the board has voted as a majority contrary to that,” Moore Stens replied.
“Where does the board have authority to adopt how the minutes should be for the Supervisor’s Office?” Weeks said.
“It’s the board’s minutes,” Moore Stens said. “It’s not the supervisor’s minutes. This is a meeting of the Canvassing Board.”
“Why would the canvassing board even be voting on something that’s not even outlined in the statutes as part of the responsibilities?” Weeks said.
“We already did that on Sept. 12 when your attorney was present,” Moore Stens said, referring to attorney Roberta Walton, who Weeks hired on her own and tried to replace Hadeed with. “If you had any objections to it at that time, which you did, that was placed on the record, and we as a board have voted,” Moore Stens added.
Moore Stens then asked Hanns if he had any objection to the minutes prepared by county staff. He did not, and the minutes were adopted.
Palm Coast City Councilman Bill McGuire, attending the meeting as a member of the public, asked Weeks to inform the City Council of any issues between poll workers and city staff at the Community Center.
“I would appreciate if we could be made aware of that as a City Council, because our intent is to cooperate with the Supervisor of Elections Office and make this voting as pleasant and smooth as possible,” he said.
