County Commission candidates argue growth, development at Free For All Political Forum

The next forum, featuring School Board candidates, will be at 7 p.m. July 28 at the Palm Coast Community Center.

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Five County Commission candidates spoke — and, at times, argued — about development and growth during a Free For All Political Forum on July 21.

The forum, held at the Palm Coast Community Center and broadcast live on WNZF News Radio, was hosted by Flagler Broadcasting and the Palm Coast Observer and moderated by Brian McMillan and David Ayres. 

It included only the County Commission candidates who will be on the primary ballot. 

For the District 2 seat, there are three, all Republicans: incumbent Greg Hansen and challengers Janet McDonald and Denise Calderwood.

In District 4, Republican incumbent Joe Mullins faces challenger Leann Pennington. The winner of the primary  will face NPA candidate Jane Gentile-Youd in the general election.

Candidates overran their length limits as they answered, so the forum only addressed one topic — growth and development — of the several that had been proposed for the evening. 

Candidate introductions

Denise Calderwood (District 2)

Calderwood described herself as a first-generation Palm Coaster whose family had moved to Palm Coast in 1974. She said she used to hang out at the Palm Coast Community Center when she was 8 or 9 and her father was on its board of directors.  

"Palm Coast has been a great place to live. It has the potential for a great place to live. Flagler County is still a fantastic place to live," she said. "I don't know of many places that has the beach and farms within — well, it used to be only seven minutes to get from the beach side to the west side, but now it takes a half an hour, that's if you're lucky."

She said she'd grown up alongside boys who've since become some of the county's most influential men, like attorney Michael Chiumento and financial consultant and former two-term School Board member Eddie Herrera. She said she'd beaten them both in baseball. 

"I was one of the best pitchers there were, and a ping pong player," she said. "… I'm not afraid of those guys; they put their pants on one leg at a time, just like I do.”

Calderwood has a master's in public administration and has worked as a grant writer and project manager after serving as a police officer.

She's run previously for county commission and for the office of sheriff. 

"For about 22 years, I've been a perennial candidate, as FlaglerLive has basically said," Calderwood said. "Several people tell me I'm a political gadfly. I'm just a person who cares about what's happening in Flagler County as a lifelong resident. I'm just a person who wants to give back and who's a servant leader.”

She added, "And I'm here for you, and I have the youth, the experience and the energy — even though now I'm the oldest I've ever been, at 54."

 

Greg Hansen (incumbent, District 2)

Greg Hansen was appointed to the District 2 County Commission seat by former Gov. Rick Scott in 2017 to fill the seat vacated by the death of Commissioner Frank Meeker. Hansen won the election for that seat the following year. 

"It seems that my whole career has pointed me into this direction and made me the right guy to be your county commissioner," he said.

He summarized his qualifications: He'd graduated from the Naval Academy in 1969 and served for 27 years in the U.S. Navy, spending a year in Vietnam doing river and coastal patrol. He commanded two warships — a frigate and a cruiser — and earned a master's in finance during his service, then worked for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then a D.C. government relations firm.

"I got to work with the Navy Department and the Congress on improving the Navy's readiness," he said. "It was a great job."

Then he moved to Flagler County, and, in 2017, was appointed to the commission, winning the seat the following year. 

"So I'm up again this year. And it's a fascinating job," he said. "And I love the job. And I love the job because I help people. I help you."

Hansen noted that his district includes unincorporated areas of the county, which the county government governs directly — as opposed to areas that are also within a city, like Palm Coast or Bunnell, where the city is the local governing body. 

"Out on the outer banks, I'm the government out there, and it's fun," he said. "They come to me with — my email blows up every day. And I get to go out there and solve problems and fix things, and I really enjoy that. And, as I said, I love this job, and I want to keep it."

 

Janet McDonald (District 2)

Janet McDonald is a School Board member in her second term: She was elected in 2014. 

A former classroom teacher and educational consultant with a master’s in education, McDonald said she'd decided to run for County Commission because she felt like the commission has been stymying school district initiatives. 

She moved to Flagler County full-time in 1989. The school district, she said, "has done some incredible initiatives and increases the opportunities for lots of kids," with its one-to-one technology initiative and flagship classrooms-to-careers programs.

Speaking with school board members from around the state, McDonald said, she'd realized that in high-performing districts, "it's all about the hand-in-glove operations of the county commissions, the municipal commissions and elected bodies and the school board working together."

She said she believes in term limits and had decided to serve only two terms on the School Board. 

One thing she didn't get to do as a School Board member, she said, was work to protect the county's natural areas from development. 

"Too much development in the wrong places, I think, is what's been a concern of a lot in the community," she said. 

The school district, she said, is concerned with preparing for growth.

"The reason why I was committed to putting myself up as a candidate for County Commission is that in the last year, our school initiatives have been thwarted by our County Commission, and our half-penny sales referendum was stymied, as well as our interlocal agreement — which is where municipalities all get together to work in concert to make the best environment for our development and our service to our schools," she said. 

McDonald was speaking of two separate matters — the half-cent sales tax that raises money for the school district and will come before voters for renewal as a ballot referendum this year; and an interlocal agreement between the school district, the county and area municipalities regarding how and when the school district can collect fee money from developers to build or expand schools.

The County Commission in June voted 4-0 in favor of putting the half-penny sales tax on the ballot, with several commissioners, including Hansen, saying they supported it. 

But the school district and the county government remain at odds over the interlocal agreement. The School Board wants the district to be able to collect fees from developers up front to offset new developments' impacts on schools, while the county supports a plan that would give developers more time. 

"We need to make sure that we're developing in concert, and at the right fee, for the people who are coming in," McDonald said, "so that your services are maintained, and they have services provided at the level that you enjoy, or even something better."

 

Leann Pennington (District 4)

Pennington introduced herself to the crowd as a native Floridian and lifelong Republican who's been part of the community for 30 years.

Before she had her son, who's now 17, she built mortgage-backed bonds for Goldman Sachs, Fidelity and Morgan Stanley, she said. 

The travel became too much after her son was born, and she became an internal investigator for JPMorgan Chase, commuting to Jacksonville for about 10 years. 

"I handled all their high-end regulatory issues — the collapse of Washington Mutual — I was their chief subject matter expert in mortgage fraud," she said. "I testified on quite a few government trials, high-profile trials."

She then became chief fraud strategist for a large Canadian bank, managing mortgage, home equity and commercial lending portfolios, she said. 

"I implement implement fraud strategy for them," she said. "I am the reason that you get those beautiful little texts on the phone, of code and magic numbers that you can't stand. But it actually has a purpose and serves a purpose quite well."

When she's not working from home, "I can be found roaming the aisles of Hobby Lobby, looking for craft projects that I'm probably never going to finish," she said.

"My background, it really has a certain ... investigative and analytical skill set," she said. "... I want to be able to make you feel comfortable that a right [commission] decision was made, that the due diligence was laid down on the matter, and that you feel, at the end of the day, that was the right decision, and you know why."

 

Joe Mullins (incumbent, District 4)

County Commissioner Joe Mullins participated in the forum by phone — he was in Colorado at a National Association of Counties meeting — and only had time for the opening question.

Given Mullins' limited time, forum co-host Brian McMillan asked Mullins to both introduce himself and address recent controversies about him.

"You've been in the news a lot, Joe," McMillan said. "If you could just tell us ... if you feel like you've learned anything about interacting with residents on social media — there's been a lot of negativity — maybe start with that, and then give us your pitch about why we should vote for you, and your background."

Footage of Mullins saying "I run the county" to a state trooper who'd pulled him over for speeding recently went viral on social media after FlaglerLive.com posted the video online with a story. 

"I come from the sports and entertainment industry, and before I decided to run in 2015, you can imagine, I was one of the most loved people — I could get people into sports events, concerts, different things," Mullins replied. "And amazingly, when I decided to run in 2015, it — the news, the media, all this crazy stuff — started coming out and coming at me."

Mullins had been running for a Georgia House seat in 2015 when publications there began investigating allegations about his conduct; the Observer ran a story about those issues when Mullins ran for County Commission in 2018.

"You know, I think social media is a very good platform to communicate and speak to people," Mullins said. "I think it's definitely something that the media hates, because they can't run their agenda and run it.

He added, "Just today, we had a story ran that I'm in conflict with the FOP [Fraternal Order of Police]. ... The FOP has posted something today correcting that, saying it's a total fabricated lie."

Mullins was referring to a FlaglerLive.com story about one of Mullins' Facebook posts. The post showed a photo of Mullins speaking before the 10-13 Club, an organization of retired New York City police officers, with text stating, "Very honored to speak and have the support of the Fraternal Order of Police #171 Flagler/Palm Coast Florida and the North Florida Retired Police association."

Leaders of the 10-13 Club and the FOP lodge both told FlaglerLive that they did not like the post's wording, as it could imply that their organizations had endorsed Mullins, when they had not. Mullins has changed the post to say that he was honored "to speak and give my full support" to the organizations.

The FOP, in a Facebook post of its own, did not call the FlaglerLive story a "total fabricated lie," but stated, "President [Dave] Mazzone's comments to the news media were that 'no Board Member of our Lodge has endorsed any political candidate.' ... At no time did Joe Mullins say the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #171 endorsed him."  

"I know I'm not perfect, " Mullins said. "... I'll celebrate 11 years of recovery from a heavy addiction, Aug. 16, and I'm very excited about that. ... Again, I'm going to make mistakes. I've just recently made some, and I make them continually, and I'm not going to be perfect. But that's not why I was elected. People came up to me and said, 'Listen, we need somebody to stand and fight for us.' ... So, you know, I think social media is a very important platform to be able to get information out."

He added, "I don't make mistakes without learning from them."

Mullins listed some of the county's recent accomplishments, like infrastructure work and efforts to extend broadband internet to the western parts of the county. 

"You look at some of the stuff this commission has done over the last four years since I've been in office, it's unbelievable," Mullins said. "It is incredible. I mean, I'm out here in Colorado right now, and we are the model county for broadband. We are the model county for setting up our funds, the government funds that we got, putting them towards infrastructure."

"Social media, again, I think it's a great avenue. I think there are going to be some bruises," he said. "But I'm not too worried about it, and I'm not not going to let it deter me, and I'm not going to let it stop me working my butt off for this county and the future of it — our kids, our families — and making sure that we've got a great place to live for the next 50, 60 years."

 

Janet McDonald

Janet McDonald has also generated media coverage and controversy in her time as an elected official.

"You've been in headlines also in your time on the School Board, and so I wanted to give you a chance to respond," McMillan said. "... Students in the LGBT community ... felt that you'd been intolerant toward their community as you've been on the School Board. So could you just respond to that, and then we'll dive into the other issues."

"I thought it was very unfortunate that this one student that was kind of at the head of it was not made more aware of what he was actually talking about," McDonald said, referring to FPC student Jack Petocz's school walkout over Florida's Parental Rights in Education Bill, also referred to as the "Don't Say Gay" bill.

The school suspended Petocz over the walkout, and the suspension generated nationwide press coverage.

"... [The walkout] took kids who did not even know what the walkout was about, out of school for 30 to 40 minutes. ... And half of them didn't know why they were doing that," McDonald said. "... And I think what happened was, there was no resolution for this person. And he's coming into adulthood, and he needs to know how to interact with legislation and legislators better."

Petocz received a PEN/Benenson Freedom of Expression Courage Award after the walkout, gave an address about his experience at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government in April and was an invited attendee at President Joe Biden's signing of an executive order on LGBT rights in June. 

McMillan had interviewed Petocz, and other local young LGBT activists, on Free For All Friday. 

"My experience was that we talked a lot about the bill, and I think they understood it quite well — however, they had a different feeling about it," McMillan said. 

Some members of the forum audience booed.

"You'll have to listen to the podcast, because it was a good interview," McMillan said. 

 

Growth and development

Several candidates addressed growth and development in their opening comments. It was also the first real question of the forum — and the only one, aside from closing comments, that fit in the hour allotted for the event. 

"What can the county do to keep up with with growth?" McMillan asked the candidates.

Candidates were told to keep their comments to 60 seconds, but none quite managed. 

 

Leann Pennington

Pennington opened by noting the difficulty of treating such a complicated topic in so little time. 

"A 60-second version of solving our biggest problem, right?" she said, to laughs from the audience. "Yeah, we're growing. We're in the freest state under a great governor — we're growing, and we're a beautiful community."

But, she added, "I think as a County Commission, we can ensure impact fees are covering dollar-for-dollar that growth, that it's not taxing on the residents in that regard. You know, you're moving here, you're adding to the need for services, so definitely we can collect that up front."

She said she'd traveled through California and figures that at some point, Florida's population levels will look like California's.

"But, you know, what are we going to be?" she said. "We're going to be like the armpit, or we're going to be the Monterey? Flagler County has the potential to be this beautiful treasure of Florida, and I don't necessarily feel we need to cave on that."

She said she doesn't feel the county does a good enough job of communicating with residents about how it's managing growth. 

"I don't think people feel comfortable saying that we've got control of our growth, that we have a smart plan," she said. "I don't think that message is out there ... because people are going, 'They need to put a red light here,' and 'They need a turn lane here.' If you're doing it, great, but nobody knows it, so we do not a great job of conveying that."

 

Janet McDonald

McDonald said she'd been inspired to run in part because of impact fee studies. 

"We obviously are behind the times. Our growth is probably mostly due to the fact that our impact fees are inappropriately too low," she said, noting that St. Johns and Volusia have higher fees. 

"In this paradise of low fees to pay to play, we have been certainly ripe for the picking," she said. " ... So that's part of my reason for running, and kind of what Leann said about working together. It's not just the county's job, it's not just the city's job, or the other municipalities, or the school district. We need to work together to have that larger vision and a better vision and a better, unified plan for where the growth needs to be, and where we can support that."

Low impact fees mean a higher burden on ad valorem taxpayers, she added.

"My position is that we need to do coordinated planning," she said, "Then we can have best areas of development to protect our natural and historical resources with a reasonable fee, so that we can keep our level of services in education and transportation, and in all the other things we have in the county paid for."

 

Greg Hansen

Hansen began his remarks by responding to McDonald. He said it wasn't true that the County Commission hadn't supported the half-cent tax. 

"If you ... go back and look at the YouTube, I did a soliloquy with the superintendent all about this, and how we were going to support her 100% on the half-cent," he said. "In fact, I volunteered to go out and speak to organizations about this half-cent sales tax, because we've got to have it. So to say that we don't support it, I don't get that." 

As to the interlocal agreement, he said, the School Board is at odds with the other government bodies. 

Then he addressed McMillan's question about growth.

"We spent a lot of time and study to figure out the impact fees, and the idea was to get enough impact fees to take care and manage the growth — not to rape people that are moving in here, but to get enough money ... to provide services and the increased services we were going to need," he said. "And we did that. And that took us a year."

The county had dropped its impact fees during the recession, then conducted a study and reenacted them, he said. 

"The thing about growth, as you all know, it's going to happen," Hansen said. "... Our job as county commissioners in the unincorporated part of the county is to manage this growth. And it's critical that we do that. And the way you manage growth is you establish rules on setbacks, and how close houses can be to each other, and how big lots are going to be, and how many lots in an acre."

He cited two cases in which he felt developers had cut down too many trees. "We lost that fight, so we have to do a better job," he said. "And with the help of my fellow commissioners, we are going to do that. We're going to lock down this tree business so it doesn't happen again."

He noted that people who buy property have constitutional rights to use that property. 

"People ... own the property, they want to build houses on it —OK, fine. But you're going to build them to our rules, the way we want to build them," he said.  

 

Denise Calderwood

"I'm concerned and I'm confused and I admit that," Calderwood said, opening her answer.

She said understands codes and comprehensive plans. But the county's current commissioners, she said, "change the rules for whoever's in front of them."

Turning to Hansen, she said, "You were at those meetings. ... You never voted against any of the developments. It was always 5-0, OK?"

Hansen listed two he'd voted against.

The two candidates began to argue.

"OK, this isn't a debate, is it?" Calderwood asked the moderators. "Is this a debate? You want me to go back and forth?"

"You attack somebody, they have a right to defend themselves," Ayres said. "So it starts with you here, so there you go."

"OK. Then I'd like to attack Commissioner Mullins," Calderwood said — Mullins was no longer on the line to respond — "and say when I heard that he called me 'a drunk' on the radio because I held the commissioner accountable, because of his actions, at a County Commission meeting two weeks ago, he comes back and says that I was drunk. I haven't — 

"Yeah, but you're not running against him," Ayres interjected. 

"Doesn't matter," Calderwood replied. "The unanswered truth becomes a lie, OK? The unanswered lie becomes the truth — I said it backwards. ... I'm the community organizer. I'm running the campaign on $1,000. ... You know — "smart growth"? I think it's actually stupid growth. And we have no control over it, and we are at the mercy of the people who are here developing now."

 

Closing comments

Candidates gave their final remarks after McMillan urged them to focus on their own views, so that the limited remaining time wouldn't be consumed with rebuttals.

 

Leann Pennington

Pennington said she wouldn't have run for office if she didn't care about the community. 

Campaigning, she said, "is a ...  self-esteem tester every day."

"I tell this all the time, my kid knows it very well: You are always, always, always one politician away from living a life you don't want to live," she said. "So when you vote, don't vote for all the signs. That's a terrible way, method of doing it. Do your research, do your homework."

Voters should choose people who are invested in the community and not working for special interests, she said. 

"Vote for people who care, who are trying to make a good go and a life at it here, that have a vision for us," she said. "... Vote  for people that have a track record of keeping things beautiful and great."

 

Janet McDonald

McDonald mentioned her record of volunteer service, saying that she's been a volunteer reader, a member of Save Flagler Beach and a member of the Flagler Palm Coast Kiwanis Club.

"The reason why I served on the School Board is because that's my background and my passion," she said. "But finding out how other counties do things so well and so easily, it's because they work hand-in-glove with their commissioners on every panel — our municipalities, our County Commission, anyone. And we talk to all the community members, because it's you folks that have the insight on what we really need."

She added that she funds her own campaigns and has no ties to special interests, and reiterated the importance of the upcoming half-cent sales tax referendum.

"It's really important that we support our schools, so the upgrades to our district don't fall on the backs of our ad valorem taxpayers," she said.

She again mentioned the interlocal agreement.

"We don't want to have attorneys and special interests deciding who pays the fees, and how much," she said. "So we would like to have the school district and the municipalities, the governmental agencies that serve all of you, be accountable for what goes on."

 

Greg Hansen

Hansen focused on the current commission's accomplishments and coming challenges, like efforts to repair the county's beach dune system. 

"We've got a plan, we're working with the Army Corps [of Engineers]," he said."So that's one of our biggest problems. We've got to figure out how to do that."

Another challenge, he said, is water management and flooding prevention.

"In the west county — you know, where all the farmland is — they flood all the time," Hansen said. "We've got a study going on out there now how to fix that."

Meanwhile, he said, the county is building a new Sheriff's Operations Center, and it's expected to be ready this fall. A new library is also under construction.

"We are working very hard for you, and we've made a lot of progress," he said. 

The county tries to get as much funding as possible from sources other than property taxes, he said. 

"One of the most dear things to me is the spending of your money. And that's what we do — the County Commission spends your money, and if we don't do it right — throw us out," he said. "Because it is, honest to God, the most sincere thing I do for you, is to watch that spending."

The County Commission hopes to reduce the tax rate this coming year, he said.

The county is also working to buy environmentally sensitive lands to save them from development, he added.

"One of the ways you stop a developer is don't let him have the land," Hansen said. "... The more land we can buy and put into some kind of park, or something like that, the better off we are. And we're striving to do that."

 

Denise Calderwood

Calderwood said the county lacks adequate services to help homeless people, older adults and people with mental health concerns. She's advocated for greater mental health care access and housing options for homeless people, and has pushed the county to add a local senior center. 

The county's bus transportation system for people unable to drive is also lacking, she said, and that makes it hard for people to make it to their medical appointments.

"When you're driving down the road, " she said, "and you see a person going the wrong way on Palm Coast Parkway, and those people shouldn't be on —'those people,' I apologize — some people shouldn't be on the road."

She added, "And we know some of them are commissioners." 

Audience members laughed and clapped. 

"You know, the bottom line, here — this is radio, David!" she said, turning to David Ayres. "I love it! It's radio, it's entertaining!"

"You know, you give Commissioner Mullins his fair chance, and he does a beautiful job, and that's because he's on the radio every week, spouting what he wants to say," she said, referring to Mullins' weekly half-hour segment on WNZF. "And so, this is my only chance. So I pay to play, and that's my $1,000 campaign. Thank you very much. I'm the only candidate who's fiscally and socially conservative, so you can figure that out."

 

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