- January 22, 2025
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Dear Editor:
Our new mayor, Mike Norris, who is no stranger to controversy, has, right out of the gate, expressed his position on two notable divisive issues. Seeming in lock step with the DeSantis “free state of Florida” mantra, he wants to rewrite Palm Coast house color restrictions along with the existing prohibition of commercial work vehicles parking overnight in residential area driveways.
Neither of his positions seem well thought out however. His proclaiming “paint your house any color you want” is clearly over the top for hopefully obvious reasons. Combine that with his stance allowing commercial vehicles to be parked in our neighborhood’s driveways without consideration as to what is being advertised and in what manner, shape and color, to a lot of folks, is an alarming trek to reshaping Palm Coast into Tackytown.
Further, to support his commercial work vehicle stance, in a recent radio interview, Norris was adamant in his contention that Palm Coast is a working class community and not a retirement town, downplaying that only a third of residents are over 65, apparently in a misguided and misinformed effort to portray himself as the working man’s mayor.
Retirement Living magazine disputed that and curiously less than three months ago actually ranked Palm Coast number one in desirable retirement places to live. And significantly, with over 30% of our town’s population over age 65, that percentage puts Palm Coast within the top 10 places with the most aged population. Very few places in the entire country have our town’s over-65 age related demographic.
I would encourage the mayor and the City Council to proceed with their decision making armed with less “free state of Florida” hyperbole and more fact based considerations of the city’s makeup and the risks associated with deviating from Palm Coast’s historical design intentions.
Our residents have enough factors to worry about relating to property values such as hurricanes and out of control property insurance to add to the mix very possible risks associated with what the mayor supports by reshaping the look and feel of neighborhoods.
Robert Gordon
Palm Coast
