- April 15, 2025
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Updated: 9:18 p.m.
In what was designed to be a positive event, an opportunity to promote the city's accomplishments, Palm Coast Mayor Mike Norris went off script to air his grievances and promote a bleak view of the city’s future during his State of the City address on April 10, at the Community Center. He indicated that he wants residents to control the city's future, not developers.
'CHALLENGED'
Norris started his April 10 speech by briefly praising the city's employees, who had put together the presentation. “But,” he said, turning to his own notes instead, “it’s my duty as a mayor to give you what I think the state of our city is in.”
The best word to describe the city is “challenged,” he said.
'SWAMP BUILDERS'
“We are still under the mercy of the swamp builders,” he continued. “We are facing a mounting debt, failed planning and economic development and growth to support the existing revenues. You know the ones that are footing the tax bills: us, the taxpayers of Palm Coast. And the answer from the swamp builders and landholders is urban sprawl.
“We have two major projects that are being proposed for the west side of the city. One is dependent on a sports facility being built, and the decision has already been made by the powers that be in our community for that venture, at our expense."
Norris was referring to a proposed $110 million sports complex that had been presented in February 2024 to the City Council (before Norris was elected). A referendum failed in November 2024 that would have enabled the city to enter into a partnership to bring the sports complex to fruition. On April 7, 2025, it was proposed to the Flagler County Commission instead.
“You will pay the tab for that sports facility on the west side to increase the profit margins of the swamp builders," Norris said in his April 10 speech. "We prevented that hundred million dollar indebtedness for the sports facility to our city in a referendum in November. They are just shifting it to the county's debt, which we, the residents of Palm Coast, are by far the largest stakeholders in the county to pay that debt.
“It’s not about fulfilling a need for the community, it’s about creating an amenity that will attract more residents to fill the houses that they are hell-bent on building on the west side.
“Palm Coast cannot survive on residential housing and low-wage, service-sector jobs. We need to attract cutting-edge industry that will build a more balanced tax base within our city and county, and provide wages to our citizens."
Community leaders of the past and present have agreed with Norris on this point — that the city must diversify its tax base or risk inevitable tax hikes in the future.
"It takes cooperation from our landowners to accomplish this meaningful change," Norris said. "To date, I have not been approached by any major land owners that are willing to support broad-based industrial or manufacturing development. We as a community need land to make a markable difference in developing our county and our city. Within my first two weeks of being an office, I approached by major land owners, and all I received is crickets.
MORATORIUM
“The mere mention of a moratorium on residential housing a couple of weeks ago at City Hall was met by a blockade of our City Hall by elements of the Flagler County Homebuilders Association. Let that sink in: Our City Hall was blockaded by the building industry.
“That was quite astonishing and shows you who actually runs our city."
To clarify: As a verb, "blockade" means to "seal off (a place) to prevent goods or people from entering or leaving." The vehicles, organized as a protest by the FHBA, were by and large confined to marked parking spaces, allowing easy entry into the City Hall parking lot for the March 18 meeting.
Norris' proposed moratorium did not receive support from any other member of City Council, although Vice Mayor Theresa Pontieri had shown support in January 2024.
Norris continued in his April 10 speech: “How often have you heard our sheriff having to deploy a K-9s to ensure our City Hall is safe for residents and staff? This is what is called intimidation or coercion of a government body or a city population."
In an interview with Ask Flagler and the Observer after the presentation, Sheriff Rick Staly said a K-9 did patrol City Hall prior to the March 18 City Council meeting. But, he said, it was a routine sweep, performed any time a controversial subject is expected to draw a crowd at a government meeting.
CONSPIRACY
Norris continued: “We have organizations within our community encouraging city employees to file trumped up HR charges to force a duly elected mayor out of office. Backed by politicians that were soundly defeated in November."
He did not name the organizations or the past politicians, nor did he provide evidence during his speech. He did not immediately return a call requesting clarification.
Three politicians were defeated in November: David Alfin, Ed Danko and Nick Klufas.
Danko, in a phone interview with the Observer after the State of the City event, said Norris must not be talking about him because he wasn't "soundly defeated." "I only lost by 39 votes," Danko said.
Neither Klufas nor Alfin immediately responded to a request for comment. Klufas posted this as a comment on Facebook: "Nobody is conspiring against you, it’s your own actions that are leaving you isolated."
Norris continued: “These are the headwinds that I have faced the few two months of being in office. It’s challenging to say the least.
“In closing, I’ll leave you with this: Our city’s theme for today’s State of the City is ‘charting a new course.’ Are we as a community going to allow the same people that have failed our community for more than four years to chart that course for us? Or are we gonna do it?
“It takes cooperation, and it’s not more residential housing without meaningful economic development in our community.
“Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the City of Palm Coast.”
ISOLATION
Norris' remarks came at a time when, despite continued support from residents at City Council meetings, he is politically isolated. He is currently under investigation for City Charter violations. He received no support for his push for a building moratorium. He didn't attend the City Council's Tallahassee trip in March, which was celebrated in a slide at the State of the City presentation which followed his speech.
According to a source with knowledge of the situation but didn't want to be named, Norris also has removed his personal belongings from his office at City Hall.
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