- April 19, 2024
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Palm Coast’s two senior City Council members will not run for re-election.
Councilman Steven Nobile, the District 4 councilman elected in 2014, will not run because he plans to move. Councilwoman Heidi Shipley, who was elected the same year to represent District 2, will also not run again.
“I don’t know when, but it probably will be occurring in the next term,” Nobile said Jan. 12 of his planned move. “The last thing I want to do is run for election and then ... force the city to do a special election. I don’t want to do that to the city.”
Nobile said he and his wife plan to downsize.
“We just have this humongous house, and it’s only me and my wife,” he said. “And it could be Bunnell, it could be Flagler County, it could be somewhere else in Palm Coast.”
Nobile and his wife, Angela, came to the decision after the holiday break, Nobile said. They had considered locations as far north as the Carolinas, but a taste of winter cold over recent weeks convinced the couple to confine their search to Florida.
As for the time he’s spent on the council, Nobile said, he feels that two issues that motivated him to run in the first place — the need for economic development and a review of the city’s charter — are progressing.
“We’ve got the city moving in the right direction,” he said.
In the meantime, he said, “Nothing’s going to change, as far as I’m concerned, for the end of my term. I’m going to just keep trying, keep pushing at it until the very last day.”
If he had the option to go back in time and decide whether to do it all over again, “I would say yes,” he said. “I’m very glad I did. It was a very good experience, working with the different people, especially the state government. ... I would definitely run again if not for the fact that we’re moving.”
Shipley said she felt she hadn’t been able to achieve everything she’d hoped to on the council, and thought it was time for someone else to step forward. And, she said, she knew that former mayor Jon Netts had expressed interest in running for her spot.
She didn’t want to run against Netts, and thought a re-election campaign would be too financially costly.
“It cost about seven grand to run last time, and I don’t have that this time around,” she said.
The departure of Shipley and Nobile will leave on the council three people who were elected in 2016: Mayor Milissa Holland and councilmen Nick Klufas and Bob Cuff.
“I don’t like it that there’s not going to be a senior person in this spot,” Shipley said. “Luckily, we have the mayor,” who has prior experience in local government. “I’ll still try to stay involved,” Shipley added.
Shipley said she was pleased that she’d been able to help the city move forward with an initiative to expand its street lighting and to roll out a trap-neuter-return program for feral cats.
Asked Jan. 16 if he planned to run for Shipley’s seat, Netts said he was “seriously considering it.”
