- April 18, 2024
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It was not looking good for Flagler Beach City Commission Chairwoman Kim Carney: Commissioner Steve Settle had motioned to remove her from her position as chairwoman of the commission, and Commissioner Marshall Shupe had seconded Settle’s motion. Commissioner Joy McGrew seemed to support it, too.
And then, after Carney placed it up for a vote, Shupe reversed his second. “Without a second, it’s not going to have a discussion, and we’ve had a very good discussion. And with that said, I’m going to remove my second,” he said.
“So we have a motion,” Carney said. “Do we have a second?” The commission did not. Settle’s motion died for lack of a second. The audience that had packed every seat in the room and the standing room along its walls applauded.
Speaking after the Sept. 25 meeting, Settle said he wasn’t disappointed with the outcome.
“I really didn’t care how it was going to come out as long as we made the point that something had to give, the conflict could not continue the way it was going,” he said. “Hopefully things will change a little bit. Hopefully the anger level and the strain will subside a little bit. …I’m not unhappy that it turned out this way, I’m just happy that we got it out in the open and talked it though.”
The discussion had lasted for more than an hour, and included not only comments from Mayor Linda Provencher and all of the commissioners — largely critical of Carney — but also from about a dozen members of the public, overwhelmingly in support of Carney.
In reading his motion, Settle explained his reasons for putting Carney’s position as Chairwoman up for a vote, saying that the commission under her leadership has become increasingly dysfunctional.
Settle said he would have preferred to deal with the matter internally rather than bring it up at a public meeting, and criticized the state’s open government laws, which barred him from doing so. But, he said, “This cannot go on. This simply cannot go on. …There’s no teamwork here; there has to be. We’ve got to get back to the point where we’re working as a team.”
Issues came to a head in a dispute between Carney and the rest of the commission over the purchase of a $600,000 fire truck called a quint, which has been included in the upcoming budget. Carney has opposed the purchase, and the rest of the commission has supported it.
“What really has drawn the line and led me to believe we’ve gone too far is what’s happened lately, and it has nothing to do with the fire truck; it has to do with tactics used over the fire truck — tactics that have been way, way over the line,” Settle said.
Carney, he said, had humiliated the Fire Department, city staff members and other commissioners in the course of her public opposition to the truck.
“What we’ve been told is that we know nothing about what we’re doing,” he said. “It’s been suggested to me, or at least — that’s how I perceive it — that we’ve done no research.”
So, he said, “My standard has been violated, so I am making a motion at this time that we vacate the chair and replace the chair with a chairman pro-tem for the duration” of the term.
Commissioner Marshall Shupe seconded the motion immediately. He said he was concerned about the way Carney repeatedly asked staff for information, taking them away, he said, from their regular duties with lists of more than a dozen questions.
Provencher said she understood why Settle had made the motion. But, she said, “I also know that Commissioner Carney is a bulldog. If she gets an idea she’s going to go for it if we’re for it or against it,” an attitude she doubted would change if Carney were removed from her position as Chairwoman.
“I don’t know that making her step down from the chair is going to make her, ‘Ok, Kim, don’t go out there and go rogue,’ because that’s just her personality,” Provencher said. “I just think everyone needs to put their swords in the sand and play nice.”
McGrew sided with Settle, but preceded her criticisms of Carney with praise. “I think (Carney) is one of the hardest working people I’ve ever worked with,” she said. “But … there’s times I’ve tried to say to you, ‘You’re not doing it the way it’s supposed to be done.’” She said she supported Carney as a friend and colleague, but not in the position of chairwoman of the commission. She said she had considered bringing a motion to remove Carney weeks before Settle had.
“I’m frustrated that we have gone so awry,” she said. She told Carney she hoped her fellow commissioners’ words would have an impact, but “I’m pretty sure I’d put my money that you’re not going to change.”
Commissioner Jane Mealy said she wouldn’t vote to remove Carney because it would only “embarrass the city further,” but, she said, “What I will do is hope that maybe you finally heard us, that you won’t go out and act rogue. … You think you can act as a single representative of yourself, but you’re seen as a city commissioner.”
Carney asked her for an example.
In one instance, Mealy replied, Carney had spoken with Sen. John Thrasher about beach restoration plans, and Thrasher, Mealy said, had assumed Carney was speaking as a representative of the commission. When he discovered that she was not, Mealy said, “he was furious.”
Carney said the other commissioners had misinterpreted her words and actions.
“I never said you didn’t know anything,” she said. “What I said was, ‘Please, let’s look at this fire truck issue. Please, let’s slow down. …My intent was never to make you feel like I know more than you; I just looked at it differently than you.”
Carney rebutted Shupe’s statement that she’d badgered Fire Department staff with questions, saying that she’d gone to City Manager Bruce Campbell with her inquiries and only turned to Fire Captain Bobby Pace after she’d “been blocked by Bruce on every single request.”
Residents who spoke at the meeting said they were appalled by the commission’s actions.
“I’m absolutely shocked and ashamed at your behavior,” one woman said. “I’ve heard about this bickering, and its terrible. … It’s ridiculous. Come on; you’re acting worse than your grandchildren.”
“I’ve been to many meetings and this is an all-time low,” said resident Jackie Mulligan. “Every one of you has made faux pas as commissioners. To point out Kim tonight, is the lowest of the low.” She criticized Settle’s characterization of the commission as a team. “You are not a team. You’re five individuals, five individual votes. You want to be a team, go play baseball or something,” she said.
One man rebuked Settle for criticizing Florida’s open government laws. “I don’t view this as a black eye; I don’t view this as a low point. I view this as democracy,” he said.
Another woman said she’d known Carney for years, and that Carney is “one tough cookie.” “She pulls it off, she makes it happen, she has amazing strength. …But, the bottom line is, I think maybe everyone on the commission needs to go forward a little bit, and maybe, Kim, you need to pull back a little bit. You need to get along, and I think every one of you is capable of that if you just try.”
In an interview after the meeting, Carney said that some of the actions her fellow commissioners had taken issue with had preceded her appointment to the chairmanship. And, she said, “I’m doing my job, which is running the meetings. I will, again, never stop fighting for what I need, what the citizens need, what the city needs.”
But she hadn’t known how upset her colleagues were, she said.
“I didn’t know how they were feeling obviously. I couldn’t talk to them about how they were feeling. So now we got it out.” Now, she said, “I’ll be more cognizant of where I go and what I do.”
$600,000 fire truck is gone
The $600,000 quint fire truck whose potential purchase divided the commission and led Settle to challenge Carney’s position as chairwoman has been sold to another buyer, a fact Carney uncovered Sept. 25 in conversations with city staff and revealed to other commissioners during discussion of the motion to remove her.
“All the options that were given on this fire truck are off the board, so all of that was in vain,” she said of the wrangling over the quint.
The commission let the remark sit until after Settle’s motion was defeated and the commission took a break and reconvened.
City Manager Bruce Campbell explained for the rest of the commission.
“Since this started, things have changed,” he said. “We looked at this truck that was a demo back in February, I believe — February or March —I don’t know when it was; it was cold. That truck’s gone. The second concept was, there was another chassis truck coming through. Well, low and behold, someone snatched that up.”
Now, he said, “For the quint, which is the Viper model from Rosenbauer, we’re going to have to build a complete new truck, which takes about a year.”
Until the city decides to buy an individual truck and gets a purchase order for it, he said, “Nothing’s on the table. So they can be bringing another chassis through, and if we don’t say ‘That’s ours’ through the purchase order, they’re going to sell it to the first person who shows them the money.” Work on the truck wouldn’t start until there is a purchase order, and would take nine months to a year.
Provencher said she’d like to have a special meeting to discuss the truck. Campbell said he though staff would have more information by this time next week.
Carney suggested the city also look at companies other than Rosenbauer. “If we’ve got to start over, then maybe we need to start over,” Carney said. “But we’re not going to get anything in the next few weeks. It’s obvious that that’s not going to happen.”
