Weeks to city: Take it or leave it

Palm Coast Observer
News

Flagler County Elections Supervisor Kimberle Weeks has rejected both interlocal agreements Palm Coast sent her last week that would have allowed her to run the city’s elections.

“It is unclear why the City of Palm Coast is again being uncooperative and insistent on bucking established procedures and why they have returned two unofficial documents that they had no authority to modify or create,” she wrote in her reply to the city.

Instead, at 12 a.m. April 7, she emailed the city a copy of her original proposed interlocal agreement, along with an ultimatum to the city to sign it by April 16.

That agreement, which her April 7 message refers to as the “one Official Interlocal Election Agreement,” contained accusatory language directed at the city and provisions not present in her interlocal agreements with other cities for their elections. One provision would allow Weeks unfettered access to any city-owned or city-managed facility for elections if another location not owned or controlled by the city became unavailable, and another provision would bar the city from adding a referendum or another council seat to the ballot.

Weeks had previously told the city not to negotiate over the interlocal agreement she presented, but simply to sign it. The April 7 message also said the city had “no authority to modify” the agreement she’d presented.

But interlocal agreements are by definition not edicts, and it is common practice for government bodies to consider and modify interlocal agreements in public meetings, especially when their content is not routine.

Elsewhere in the April 7 message, Weeks faults the city for not meeting with her about the agreement.

“If the mayor himself or any council member had questions they certainly could have and should have sent me an email, called the office, or personally set up an appointment to discuss any concerns they had, but none chose to do so.”

The city scheduled a special March 25 meeting to discuss the interlocal with Weeks.

She announced March 23 — not to the city, but instead in an email to the local press — that she wouldn’t be attending, saying the city should have addressed her about the agreement at its March 18 meeting. The agenda for that meeting had already been set, City Spokeswoman Cindi Lane said, and the meeting occurred less than 24 hours after Weeks sent her agreement.

Palm Coast then placed the interlocal agreement on the agenda for the April 1 City Council meeting — Weeks did not attend — where the city council made some changes to it and instructed staff to return it to her along with a lightly-altered interlocal agreement from the Flagler Beach elections, so that she could choose one of the two.

Addressing Weeks’ statements that the city officials could have met with her and hadn’t, Mayor Jon Netts said at the April 1 meeting that individual council members had not spoken with her privately about the agreement because it was not a matter an individual council member could represent the entire council on.

City staff submitted the two agreements to Weeks April 2, before a noon deadline Weeks had set for a response. The deadline was not required by state statute, and City Attorney Bill Reischmann called it “arbitrary.”

In her April 7 message to the city, Weeks said “the deadline of April 2nd was imposed as it is believed the City has no idea or perhaps no regard of the timeline of requirements and responsibilities that must be met to carry out the election successfully.”

Secretary of state implores Weeks, city to work things out

In an April 3 letter to Weeks and Palm Coast City Clerk Virginia Smith, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner said “cooperation and a willingness to compromise by both parties are the keys to success in this matter,” but said he could not mediate between the city and Weeks because he is not a certified mediator.

The letter was a reply to a message by Palm Coast City Attorney Bill Reischmann asking for Detzner’s assistance to resolve the election issue if Weeks refused — as she now has — to sign one of the two agreements the city sent her April 2.

The April 3 letter was not the first time Detzner weighted in on the dispute. In an earlier, March 28 letter, he told Weeks her “responsibility is to conduct the election in an accessible, fair, and efficient manner,” and that her “arrangements with the City of Palm Coast for conducting its elections should be the same for conducting other city elections in Flagler County held in conjunction with the 2014 primary and general elections.”

In the April 3 letter, Detzner underlined the first sentence of his final paragraph in blue ink: “I strongly urge both parties to cooperate, reach agreement, and bring this matter to a speedy resolution so that the City’s election will not be a standalone election.”

Detzner wrote that he believed “a separate city election would case needless election disruption and confusion,” and that if mediation becomes necessary it should be conducted by a Florida Supreme Court-certified mediator.