- November 6, 2024
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More than a year after City Councilman Steven Nobile pressed for a review of the city’s charter, the council is considering the issue again, and again appears divided.
City Councilwoman Heidi Shipley raised the possibility of reviewing the charter during her comments at the end of a City Councilman workshop May 9.
“I just think it’s time,” she said.
Mayor Milissa Holland asked Shipley if she had a specific reasons for suggesting the review, and Shipley said she did not.
“I think it’s a good idea: I hear somebody tried to do that before,” Nobile said, drawing chuckles from other council members. “It’s a document that is used to govern us, the governors.”
Holland said she didn’t know how she felt about having a review. “I haven’t put a whole lot of thought into it, to be honest with you,” she said at the workshop. She suggested putting the issue on the agenda for a future council workshop.
Councilman Bob Cuff agreed with her, saying he also wanted more time to think about it.
Holland said she hadn’t heard residents asking for a charter review, but Nobile and Shipley countered that they had.
Nobile said he’d heard residents suggest certain issues that could be reviewed: how districts are handled, for instance, and what happens when a council member leaves before the end of their term.
And even in the preliminary discussion at the end of the May 9 workshop, some divisions became apparent.
Councilman Nick Klufas was wary of placing the charter out for review without any kind of guidance from the council, and Holland also suggested that the council could review the charter on its own.
But Nobile said the review should be a people’s review, and that a review by the council wouldn’t be a proper review.
“I want to be part of the process, I don’t want to be the process, because this is the people’s document,” he said.
City Manager Jim Landon suggested that City Attorney Bill Reischmann prepare a presentation for the council on the methods available for structuring a charter review.
Holland said she had gone through a charter review process at the county level when she was on there Flagler County Commission.
“It was very labor intensive; there’s a lot that goes into this ... they do review every aspect of the governing body,” she said. None of the recommendations that came out of the county charter review were ultimately enacted, she said.
Palm Coast’s utility revenue is coming in higher than expected this year, while the city’s stormwater fund revenue is coming up slightly short, according to a city staff presentation at the May 9 City Council workshop.
Utility revenue also came in high last year, City Manager Jim Landon said. Revenue tends to be higher in dry years because people use more water.
“These dry years are going to help us out,” Landon said. “As dry as it is this year, we’re very confident that our projection of $36.5 million is very conservative, and we’ll see higher revenue than that. ... But as soon as we have a wet year, then it will come back down.”
Meanwhile, stormwater revenues that are coming in lower than expected are pushing the city to put off planned stormwater capital improvement projects, city Finance Director Chris Quinn said.
“This is something that we’re definitely going to have to look at and address further as we go through the budget session this year,” he said.
