- December 24, 2024
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The Flagler County Commission has opted to keep Heather Haywood on the Planning Board, but remove Jeff Davies from the Contractor Review Board amid concerns about whether both board members were eligible to serve.
The board members' eligibility was questioned due to regulations that are not spelled out on the county's application forms for those positions.
Flagler County Commissioner Leann Pennington had raised a concern about Haywood's eligibility during a previous commission meeting, noting that Haywood has a homesteaded property in Deltona, in Volusia County.
Planning Board members are required to reside in Flagler County and to be homesteaded in Flagler County, but the County Commission has the purview to waive the homesteading requirement.
At a commission meeting on Nov. 20, Haywood explained that she lives in Flagler County as a renter, but is homesteaded in Volusia because of legal reasons stemming from a divorce.
"I think that this entire situation could have been have been answered by a phone call," she said. " ... My divorce is none of anybody's business. Now if you were to ask me why am I am homesteaded in Volusia and yet claimed to be a resident of Flagler County once again, that could have been answered very quickly."
County Attorney Sean Moylan said that although people are generally supposed to reside where they're homesteaded, there are exceptions.
"I've seen one Attorney General opinion where a person was homesteaded in Putnam County, but was a voter of St. Johns County," he said. "And in the end, the Attorney General felt that it's not up to the supervisor of elections to verify homestead status, and as long as they're claiming residency. They can vote in that county even though they have a homestead elsewhere. So there are anomalies."
Commissioners opted to waive the homesteading requirement in Haywood's case and voted 4-1, with Pennington dissenting, to do so and to retain Haywood on the board.
County Commissioner Donald O'Brien said that if the commission reconsiders the requirements for Planning Board service, he wouldn't support retaining the homestead requirement, which is not in place for county commissioners themselves.
Davies' eligibility was questioned because he is not a Flagler County registered voter, as is required for board service.
He can't be, he explained to the commission: Although he is a Flagler County resident, he is not a U.S. citizen and is therefore not eligible to register to vote.
Although his father was a U.S. citizen, Davies said, Davies found out about his father's citizenship too late in life to legally use it to gain citizenship himself. He said he'd served on boards in Orlando before moving to Flagler County.
"I've always done my best to be part of the community, not because I derive any benefit from that, I just feel I want to feel part of the community," he said.
He noted that he'd never claimed to be an elector.
The commission voted 4-1 not to waive the elector requirement, with Commissioner David Sullivan dissenting.
