- November 21, 2024
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Former Palm Coast Mayor candidate Alan Lowe has filed an injunction in the Flagler County court system to remove the Palm Coast Charter Amendment from the Nov. 5 ballot.
The lawsuit was filed on Sept. 20. According to the court documents, the injunction lists the city of Palm Coast and Supervisor of Elections Kaiti Lenhart as the defendants, against Lowe, who has contracted with attorneys Douglas Burnett from the St. Johns Law Group and Jay Livingston from Livingston & Sword P.A.
Lowe was one of five candidates in the 2024 Palm Coast mayor race but lost in the primary election with just 13% of the vote.
Lowe’s lawsuit is seeking both declaratory and injunctive relief, Livingston told the Observer.
The injunctive request is to remove the Charter Amendment from the Nov. 5 ballot. Because of the time constraints, he said, that may not be possible, so the lawsuit also asks results for that item not be tabulated.
The declaratory relief seeks for the judge — the case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Christopher France — to review the ballot summary and declare that it does not sufficiently explain the purpose of the amendment, according to state law requirements.
“The goal [of the lawsuit] is just to make sure the voters have a clear understanding,” Livingston said.
In a statement texted to the Observer on Sept. 23, Lowe wrote the filed complaint "speaks for itself." The proposed charter amendment on the Nov. 5, 2024 ballot "makes vague reference to removing provisions from the City Charter" limiting the city's spending power without explaining what those limitations are, he wrote.
This is misleading and confusing, Lowe wrote.
The Charter Amendment is to remove Article VI section (3)(e) of the Palm Coast City Charter. That section outlines limitations on the city’s borrowing power, specifically limiting the city to only borrowing up to $15 million at a time and prohibiting it from entering a lease-payment contract that is longer than 36 months.
If the city wanted to enter into agreements greater than or for longer terms than those outlined in (3)(e), it would require the approval of Palm Coast residents via a referendum vote.
Removing section (3)(e) would allow the city, with City Council approval, to increase its borrowing power and extend the amount of time the city can be in a lease agreement, without a referendum vote.
Livingston said the purpose of the amendment is to remove the referendum vote requirement outlined in the charter. Yet, he said, the ballot summary does not mention that or the other limitations outlined in section (3)(e).
Nothing in the ballot summary, he said, is mentioned in the charter section being removed. The amendment would drastically change the council’s fiscal powers and the power of the voters if it passed, he said.
“I think is very clear that the chief intent of this amendment is to eliminate the referendum and the [financial] caps,” Livingston said. “That’s the effect.”
Livingston said he happened to be present at the June council meeting when the ballot amendment was discussed, and he had “an issue with this before I had a client.”
“If you had asked me at the end of the discussion what they were talking about, I would have gotten it completely wrong,” Livingston said. He said until he went home and looked up the charter section discussed at the June meeting; he thought the proposal was to amend the city’s purchasing powers in an emergency situation.
The lawsuit also seeks to prohibit Palm Coast from submitting this specific Charter Amendment on any future Palm Coast election ballots, according to court documents.
As far as the Nov. 5 ballot goes, Lenhart told the Observer over email that the ballots for overseas citizens and military service officers were sent out on Sept. 20, the date the injunction was filed.
"The election will continue as planned unless the charter amendment is removed by court order, or majority vote by the City Council," Lenhart wrote.
The Palm Coast City Council first approved placing an amendment to remove the (3)(e) section on the November ballot at a June council meeting. Council members Ed Danko and Theresa Carli Pontieri requested the language be changed to be clearer after the first reading of the amendment. Staff made changes to the language, and the ballot language was approved by the council.
Then in August, and again at the Sept. 3 council meeting, Danko motioned to remove the amendment from the ballot. He said at the time that he changed his mind and has repeatedly called the language in the amendment “deceptive and fraudulent.”
Danko’s first motion died without a second, but the second motion tied in a 2-2 vote, with Pontieri voting with Danko to remove the amendment from the ballot. Motions need a majority vote, not just a tie, to pass.
