Palm Coast City Council held their evening business meeting at City Hall Tuesday April 2nd, 2024 at 6pm. Among the issues handled at the meeting was the acting City manager’s employment contract.
The City Council held a discussion about the interim City Manager, Lauren Johnston’s, proposed contract for her role as acting City Manager. Pontieri had motioned that she wished to ensure, through changes in the contract, that any moves to remove Lauren Johnston were done with consensus, at a future meeting. The reason for her request was due to her opinion, that the firing of Denise Bevan was done while not following the current policy and procedure. Pontieri amended her motion to accept the contract as is, so long as discussion is had and the public has notice. Klufas seconded the motion, and agreed that there needs to be discussion before the removal of a city manager happens again. The discussion continued after public comment, with Danko stating his hope that “Johnston doesn’t fall into the same trap as Denise Bevans”. Ultimately the motion was passed 3-2, with Danko and Heighter the no votes on accepting Johnston’s temporary contract.
The discussion moved forward with discussion the process of finding a permanent City Manager. The League of Cities will be sending information and connections to look for a permanent City Manager, like employment agencies, RFP’s and other recruiting agencies as the League of Cities cannot work directly with the City of Palm Coast due to the size of the city. Any findings will be brought to the council members, and staff to be included in the next workshop where the search for the City Manager is discussed.
Immediately following the discussion, Ed Danko made a motion to appoint Jerry Cameron to interim City Manager of Palm Coast instead of Lauren. Danko handed out material with a list of what Danko referred to as experience for the job. Danko’s motion ultimately failed due to a lack of a second.
