- November 23, 2024
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Palm Coast City Council member Cathy Heighter has resigned.
Heighter’s resignation is effective on Aug. 23, just under two years into her term. She submitted her resignation letter to Acting City Manager Lauren Johnston via text on Aug. 18, according to Director of Communications Brittany Kershaw.
In an interview with the Observer, Heighter said she has been considering resigning for several months now. In her resignation letter, she states she wants to focus on her personal health and aging family members while continuing to serve veterans and military families.
"I've looked over my life and my daily activities and situations and my responsibilities of what I have to do, and I came to the conclusion that it's in my best interest to step down," Heighter said. "Because if I'm not able to do what I really, really need to do, then I'm not being effective."
Online news service FlaglerLive.com first broke the news of Heighter's resignation early on Aug. 19.
Heighter, who won her election to the District 4 seat in November 2022, would have held the seat until November 2026. According to the Palm Coast City Charter, if a seat becomes vacant within two years of a term, the empty seat will be filled by appointment through a majority vote of the remaining council members within 90 days of the vacancy.
If the seat is vacant within six months of a regularly scheduled, a council can vote to postpone filling the position and have the seat filled by special election.
The Palm Coast City Council will meet next on Aug. 27 where the remaining four members will discuss the vacancy. As of right now, Kershaw said, "it has not been determined, at this early stage, whether there will be an appointment or an election."
If the council decides to go ahead with the special election, it would leave just weeks for qualified candidates to get on the ballot, Kershaw said: mail-in ballots for the November general election must be sent out by Sept. 21. The general election is on Tuesday, Nov. 5, less than 10 weeks away.
"I don't know if there's enough time to get this on the November ballot," Kershaw said. "So that's something that our attorney is currently working on, determining what the next steps are."
An appointed or specially elected representative would still only hold the District 4 seat for two years, when the seat is scheduled for election in 2026, she said.
Flagler County Supervisor of Elections Kaiti Lenhart wrote in an emailed statement that the situation was "unprecedented" — no city official has ever resigned between a primary and general election before, she wrote.
If the council decides to fill the seat via special election, the Election's Office has a Sept. 6 deadline for candidates to qualify and be submitted for the November ballot, Lenhart wrote. If the council makes its decision on Aug. 27, that would leave one week and three days until that deadline.
The time constraint also means that candidate petitions would not be accepted and candidates would need to pay the qualifying fee instead, Lenhart wrote. For the city's nonpartisan races, that is 4% of the position's salary, according to the Flagler Elections website.
Lenhart conferred with Palm Coast's city attorney, and the charter does not state what should happen if an election is in progress when a seat is emptied.
The last council member to resign was District 2 representative Victor Barbosa in March 2022 and John Fanelli, who works with Flagler Schools, was appointed to replace him until November 2022, where council member Theresa Carli Pontieri was elected, according to city records.
Mayor David Alfin was the last council member to be elected by a special election, replacing former Mayor Milissa Holland, who resigned in May 2021.
Three of the council seats are also up for election in 2024: the mayor seat and the District 1 and 3 seats. Mayor David Alfin is the only incumbent running for reelection on the City Council, with Vice Mayor Ed Danko and Council member Nick Klufas campaigning for seats on the Flagler County Board of County Commissioners.
With Heighter’s resignation, at least three of the five seats will be filled by new faces after the election, possibly four if Alfin loses his race.
Heighter’s resignation also comes at a pivotal for the Palm Coast City Council. The council is finalizing both its fiscal year 2025 budget and the Imagine: 2050 comprehensive plan. The city is also still searching for a permanent city manager.
Kershaw said some residents may be concerned about how Heighter's resignation will impact finalizing the city's budget and comprehensive plan, but wanted to reassure residents that the council is taking them seriously.
"I would hope that those aren't super big concerns in the community, because those are definitely things that city council is taking seriously, and they're going to work through," she said. "It'll just be with one less vote."
This is a developing story. This story was last updated at 3:38 p.m. on Aug. 19.
