- April 30, 2024
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Acting City Manager Lauren Johnston said she gets her passion for working in public service from her father, who has worked as a finance director for a small-town Georgia school district for 18 years.
Johnston said she didn't expect to become the acting city manager when former City Manager Denise Bevan was abruptly fired from the position on March 19. She leads a busy life, juggling community organizations with studying for her master's degree in emergency management and, most importantly, spending time with her husband CJ and two young children Cole, 6, and Maddie, 2.
But Johnston said she's here to serve her community however she's needed to.
“At the end of the day, it has to be done," Johnston said. "These are critical things in our community to move our community forward. I'm here to help make sure that the work gets done."
These are critical things in our community to move our community forward. I'm here to help make sure that the work gets done."
— LAUREN JOHNSTON, acting city manager
Johnston has worked at Palm Coast since May 2007. She rose through the ranks in the Parks and Recreation department to become its director in 2019, and later on, share the chief of staff position with Bevan. In 2022, Bevan became city manager and appointed Johnston as her assistant city manager.
Johnston said coming up through city leadership with a Parks and Recreation background gives her a different perspective than others.
For one, it has made her much more community-focused, she said, and gave her a better understanding of the community's needs.
"It helped me be the boots on the ground," she said. "I love being ingrained in the community."
Since taking over as acting city manager on March 19, Johnston said that, overall, there hasn’t been much of a transition. She and Bevan had worked closely together over the years, she said, even before their tenures as city manager and assistant city manager.
Now there is just more work and one fewer person. But Johnston said she is confident the administrative side of things will not be a problem because of how well city staff works together as a team.
The main changes she said she's seen is her increased interactions with the City Council directly and all the extra emails. Even if there were challenges with the change, she said, she prefers to see those as opportunities to learn and grow.
"A huge passion of mine is being faced with a challenge and then create an opportunity out of it,” she said.
So it’s business like normal for Johnston. She’s focused, she said, on preparing for the upcoming budgeting season, the Strategic Action Priority talks and staying connected to the her community.
I've spent my most of my adult career here and want to continue working here."
— LAUREN JOHNSTON, acting city manager
And when the next city manager is chosen, she said she will be happy to step down.
"That's important for me to work and support that person, right, because they're helping us move our community forward,” she said. “I'm here to help however I can.”
Personally, she said, she's hopeful the city will hire a firm to find a new city manager, independent of the city's staff. A firm would help take pressure off the staff to find a suitable candidate in the midst of all of the city's ongoing projects.
Overall, she said, she hopes the future city manager's expertise and experience will help support the council's vision of Palm Coast as a vibrant, safe, beautiful and well-kept city.
Regardless of the position she holds at the city, Johnston said she's going to continue supporting the city she and her family loves.
"I've spent my most of my adult career here and want to continue working here," she said. "I have seen it grow and, you know, I want it to be somewhere where my kids love to be."
