The City of Palm Coast City Council held a special meeting to hear the report of the third-party investigator regarding Mayor Norris’s questionable conduct. Following public comment Mayor Norris handled the gavel to Pontieri to make a motion to have a private city meeting regarding a “quid pro quo” offer in front of a witness, if he passed the comprehensive 2050 plan as it was written by the previous council. Pontieri said she would be all for a special meeting in the sunshine, to which Norris explained he felt it would violate State Statutes due to confidential reasons. Norris again referenced holding the special meeting within 24 hours, saying that the packet is supposed to be sent to Tallahassee so it is an emergency.  Pontieri suggested that the packet be sent to the Ethics Committee after Tuesday and that this issue be added to Tuesday’s agenda. The motion was reworded to add this issue to the agenda for Tuesday, and the packet would not be sent until after Tuesday.

Following this new claim by the mayor, the council moved forward with the presentation from the third-party investigator.  The investigator spoke about Mayor Norris stating he “believes Mayor Norris is a very candid person, speaks authentically, sometimes without a filter.” He stated that it appears all the complaints are similar to each other. He went on record to state this was not a criminal investigation, and that no one was under oath. Gambaro asked the investigator to walk through the recommendations. He spoke to the fact these recommendations are on the report, and they are not a checklist, this should be discussed and decided on by the council. His first recommendation was to seek further legal counsel, and/or send this to the Ethics Commission. The second recommendation was to do a formal vote for censure and no confidence. The third recommendation is to strengthen the City Charter, which he called “bare bones” where there is nothing in there to direct the council on what to do in a situation like this. The structure of the council and government is laid out very clearly in the charter, however, the ramifications of ignoring the City Charter are not laid out at all.

According to the investigator, one of the biggest recommendations he had, aside from amending the City Charter, is hiring a City Manager, which he noted that the council is already working on. Another recommendation was that there be more training on ethics rules for officers, workplace conduct, Sunshine Laws, and the City Charter for all of the council and key staff. The investigator explained during the question and answer phase of the presentation explained that he did find that the Mayor did violate the City Charter by requesting the resignations of Acting City Manager Lauren Johnston, and Chief of Staff Jason DeLorenzo. He did reiterate that none of the statements are sworn statements. It was stated by the investigator that developers Jeff Douglas and Paul Rice reached out to the City Attorney asking to make a statement.  Mayor Norris then asked the HR director Fuller why she didn’t come to the Mayor himself with the complaints. Ms. Fuller reported the complaints to Lauren Johnston and the City Attorney, and those who filed the complaints chose not to pursue them, so it was decided not to bother the Mayor with the complaints. HR Director Fuller said she was not trying to stack complaints against him. Mayor Norris asked Lauren Johnston to explain that he did apologize to the communications department. She responded that she didn’t hear him apologize, although she heard he apologized. Pontieri asked the public to think if it were any other councilman who was in this hot seat, would the public support them?

Gambaro made a motion to send a letter to the Governor for the Mayor’s immediate removal from office. Councilmember Sullivan seconded the motion for discussion. Pontieri said that she is not willing to send a letter to the governor to remove a duly elected Mayor. She was on board with reaching back out to all of the witnesses in the report and asking them to see if they would put these statements under oath. Sullivan commented that he stands behind his first opinion, that the next step should be the ethics committee, not the governor, and that he echoed Pontieri’s sentiment about statements under oath. Public Comment brought up a slew of support against what many residents said was nothing more than a waste of money. Many residents spoke about the fact that this investigation was not warranted and that this should have been handled in-house with conversations involving the HR department. Many who supported Norris spoke about how they hope he will work on his professionalism because they want to see him continue to represent them and fix the City of Palm Coast. Following an intense session of public comment, Gambaro’s motion failed in a 4-1 vote against sending DeSantis a letter asking for the removal of Mayor Norris. Pontieri again reiterated asking for consensus to have all of the witness statements made under oath before the letter is sent to the Ethics Committee. Mayor Norris asked about the said draft, and it came to light that the entire council was sent the draft of this ethics committee letter, except for Mayor Norris. This story will continue during the next City Council meeting, where the letter and the witness statements will be reviewed before they are sent.

Final public comment had residents questioning the legality of Gambaro’s appointment, with some residents asking for it to be looked into further, while they also asked for this issue to be resolved and for the city and council to move forward to more important issues like the state of the city, utilities, roads, and traffic.