Last Updated: 1:17 p.m.
Palm Coast City Council member Cathy Heighter resigned Friday, less than two years into her first term. City Manager Lauren Johnston received Heighter’s resignation letter by text this morning.
The resignation upends the council at a pivotal time: it is about to approve next year’s budget and its new Comprehensive Plan. It is in the middle of an election. And the proximity of the November election and the timing of ballot eligibility has the city administration and its lawyer scrambling to figure out which would make more sense: an appointment or a special election on the November ballot, or a combination of the two.
Supervisor of Elections Kaiti Lenhart said “the timing in this situation is unprecedented and presents several issues. A sitting City official has never withdrawn between the Primary and General elections.”
Heighter set her resignation’s effective date as August 23–halfway through the current pay period. She is stepping down, she wrote Johnston, “to focus on my personal health and well-being, my aging family members while I continue to pursue my passions in life serving our Veterans, Military families and the communities of Flagler, Volusia, St. Johns, Putnam County and the rest of the State of Florida.”
Heighter’s resignation upends process more than politics on the council: though she was trying–she’d meet with city staff every Monday–Heighter never appeared to have gained her footing on the council. She contributed little to discussions. Most issues seemed to be beyond her. Her votes less unpredictable than predicated on the last comment she’d heard. Alone among council members, she was resistant last week to reverting the council’s meeting schedule to four meetings a month, as it had been under Mayor Jon Netts (two meetings, two workshops, in alternating week.)
According to the city charter, if a member of the council resigns, the council has to make an appointment within 90 days. If there is an election within six months, the council may forego the appointment and wait for the election to fill the seat. The complication in this case is two-fold: Heighter’s seat is not up for an election until 2026, and there is an election in November. But in effect, all candidates for the November ballot must be certified by mid-September, when the Supervisor of Elections mails ballots–possibly sooner, since the supervisor must print the ballots.
That leaves the council and potential candidates less than a month to meet that deadline. “In realistic terms we’re talking about an election in nine weeks,” Palm Coast Communications Manager Brittany Kershaw said this morning, not counting meeting all eligibility criteria.
Lenhart, the supervisor of elections, has already mapped out the council’s tasks.
“If the City were to determine this position must be filled during the November election, the City council must adopt an immediate qualifying period for any candidate who wishes to run for the office,” Lenhart said today. “Due to time restraints, candidate petitions would not be accepted, and a candidate must pay the required qualifying fee. Our deadline for a final list of candidates is Friday, September 6, 2024. That is an absolute deadline, our testing procedures must be completed before the Federal deadline to mail ballots to overseas civilians and overseas uniformed service members by September 21.”
The qualifying fee for a City Council seat would be 4 percent of the current salary of $24,097, or $963.
Lenhart spoke with the city attorney today. “The City Charter requires a vacant office with more than one-half of the term remaining to be filled at the next regularly scheduled election,” she said. “The Charter is silent on how the office should be filled when that next scheduled election is in progress, although it is defined as November in the Charter. Candidates will not have time to gather petition signatures because City elections run concurrently with the statewide schedule. Candidate qualifying for this election ended in June.”
If the additional election on the ballot does not require the supervisor to add a page to the ballot, there will be no added cost to the city. If an added page is required, the city will have to pay the elections office $14,000.
The council’s meeting on Tuesday was cancelled because of the primary election. It meets next on Aug. 27, when filling the Heighter seat will be discussed, unless the council calls a special meeting before then.
Contacted Sunday when FlaglerLive learned that Heighter was planning to resign–but had not confirmed it (Heighter did not return phone and email messages on Sunday)–Mayor David Alfin said he had not heard of the possibility, but did not sound shocked. “Certainly it would be unexpected,” he said. “I haven’t followed Cathy’s health recently, I know she’s had some illness and some things, and missed a little bit of time on the dais. Hopefully she’s well.”
Three seats are up in this year’s election for council–Alfin’s, and the seats held by Ed Danko and Nick Klufas, both of whom are running for County Commission seats. So at least two seats will be filled by new council members, and possibly that of the mayor. With Heighter’s resignation, there is a possibility that by November, Theresa Pontieri will be the only council member with any kind of seniority, and even then, just two years’ worth, though Pontieri appears to have mastered the job faster than most. The new council is expected to appoint a city manager.
Though turnover has been brisk on the council in recent years, the council will have never known this much change, and aside from its early years after the city incorporated in 1999, will have never had so little seniority. That would have been the case next November even without Heighter’s resignation.
That may influence how the council approaches filling the seat.
The Heighter seat was the subject of a resignation several years ago, when Steven Nobile resigned in April 2018. The council voted to appoint Vincent Lyon, an attorney, in his place. He served six months. Eddie Branquinho was elected. Lyon is still in the district. Branquinho is not.
“I wish her well but she could scarcely have picked a worse time to resign,” said Bob Cuff, the attorney and former City Council member who was on the council when Nobile resigned, and part of the process to appoint his replacement. “The ‘orderly’ way to replace her would be an appointment until a special election to fill her seat but the cost of that and the confusion that is likely to dominate the new council (especially if three seats are filled by new members) is going to make that a mess. Just not sure how they can qualify any candidates sincerely interested in time for the November election and expect voters to make an informed choice.”
[This is a developing story.]
Here’s the Charter Language on filling vacancies:
1.If, for any reason other than recall or assuming the office of Mayor, a vacancy occurs in the office of any Council seat within the first two years of a term, the office shall be filled by appointment within 90 days following the occurrence of such vacancy by majority vote of the remaining Council members. If said vacancy occurs within six (6) months of the next regularly scheduled election, the remaining Council members may delay the appointment. Such appointments shall last until the next regularly scheduled election, at which time the seat shall be declared open and an election held for the remaining two years of the original term, thus continuing the original staggering of district seats.
2.If, for any reason other than recall or assuming the office of Mayor, a vacancy occurs in the office of any Council seat within the last two years of a term, the office shall be filled by appointment within 90 days following the occurrence of such vacancy by majority vote of the remaining Council members. If said vacancy occurs within six (6) months of the next regularly scheduled election, the remaining Council members may delay the appointment. Such appointments shall last until the next regularly scheduled election, at which time the seat shall be declared open and an election held for the regular four-year term.
3.If a vacancy occurs as a result of a Recall Petition, such vacancy will be filled by Special Election as outlined in Art. VII.
4.Any person appointed to fill a vacant seat on the Council is required to meet all the qualifications for office except the petition requirement.
