- November 22, 2024
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Al Krier, the community activist leading an initiative to add sidewalks and other pedestrian safety features on Palm Coast's Cimmaron Drive, died on Dec. 24 at age 86.
"He was passionate, persistent, and dedicated to the safety and welfare of everyone."
— DAVID ALFIN, Palm Coast mayor
"Al was my friend and a champion of his beloved Palm Coast," Palm Coast Mayor David Alfin said in a statement released by the city government. "He was passionate, persistent, and dedicated to the safety and welfare of everyone. Al is the very definition of good governance from the public side, promoting and advocating for good and thoughtful action by local government. It is my hope that we all take this moment to remember our ‘champion’ and learn a lesson from Mr. Krier to work together and make our community the very best it can be.”
Krier and other Safety on Cimmaron volunteers spoke at Palm Coast City Council meetings dozens of times during the council meetings' public comment periods, urging the council to add sidewalks or consider traffic calming measures.
"I think it speaks to the person that he was: He was purposeful and he wanted to make an impact," Joe Krier, Al Krier's son, said when asked about his father's drive to organize the Cimmaron movement. "And he knew he was getting closer to the end, and he wanted to be productive to his community right up to the end."
It wasn't Al Krier's first time helping lead a community initiative.
“Even when he was young, in 1964, he raised money for a Hiawatha statute when we lived in northern Michigan, to try to give people a reason to stop in the little town we were living in, "Joe Krier said. "It’s still standing today, 52 feet tall.”
That effort had taken a couple years of organizing and fundraising. Al Krier had also been a fundraiser for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, organizing walkathons, Joe Krier said.
Krier had been a business owner, and knew how to run things: He'd founded his own business, A&D Animal Control, in 1990, focusing on humane animal relocation.
Krier moved to Florida full time in 2019. He wrote regular letters to the editor to the Palm Coast Observer about the Cimmaron cause.
In the most recent, published on Dec. 22, Krier thanked those who'd supported the safety initiative, writing, "In keeping with the spirit of the holidays, I’d like to express my sincere gratitude to all who support our goal of making Palm Coast a more walkable, bicycle-friendly community. ... Our Christmas wish is that one day soon, an increasingly high-traffic Cimmaron will become a model for our city’s collector road improvements, featuring sidewalks and other safety features."
Krier also took part in community events, sporting brightly colored costumes designed to make people smile.
"This all started when I was in college: I was rooming with a guy that was a professional clown, and I was the pickup guy," Krier — wearing giant sequined red, white and blue bow tie with matching hat and sunglasses — had said in a city of Palm Coast video about his golf league at a city golf course. "The pickup guy is the guy that follows the horses and everything else. And I just kept [the costume] on. I try to be Uncle Sam, I try to be Abraham Lincoln, St. Paddy, all that stuff."
Before COVID-19 led to restricted visitation policies, Krier went to hospitals and nursing homes in costume to cheer people up.
"I think it speaks to the person that he was: He was purposeful and he wanted to make an impact."
— JOE KRIER, on Al Krier's Cimmaron activism
He was a member of the men's golf league at the Palm Harbor Golf Club, volunteered as an usher at the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church and took part in the Palm Coast Yacht Club's annual Palm Coast Holiday Boat Parade.
The 2023 Palm Coast Holiday Boat Parade will be named in Krier's honor, according to parade organizer Sarah Ulis.
To view Krier's obituary and for information on services, go to clymerfuneralhome.com/obituary/alois-al-krier.
