- June 16, 2025
The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office will be loaning Chief of Staff Mark Strobridge to Palm Coast to fill in as a temporary assistant city manager.
The Palm Coast City Council approved in a 4-1 vote a three-month interlocal agreement with the FCSO for $22,699 per month. The money, paid out of the City Manager personnel budget, is paid to the FCSO, not Strobridge, for Strobridge’s services.
The city manager position is able to hire staff, including filling temporary positions, as Vice Mayor Theresa Carli Pontieri pointed out. The interlocal contract, Acting City Manager Lauren Johnston said, is for the city and FCSO to lay out a clear contract and use.
Johnston said the city is also not fully staffed, with three major positions having been sitting empty for months: the utility director position, the assistant city manager position and the community development director. The utility director position, she said, is especially important to fill as soon as possible and help maintain city priorities.
“Chief Strobridge offers many years in local government experience,” Johnston said. “He’s a great judge of character. He can help us with that process.”
But there were concerns from residents that a member of the FCSO leadership would be filling the position as the city is going through its own budgeting process. The contract, however, outlines that Strobridge will have “no oversight or involvement with city budget as it relates to or pertains to the city of Palm Coast contracted services with Flagler County Sheriff’s Office.”
Mayor Mike Norris was the sole vote against the contract. He said his issue was not with Strobridge specifically coming in, but instead that the city was in this position because the council had not chosen a new city manager in April. Norris has stated multiple times in his tenure as mayor that he did not trust Johnston and wanted to see her out of the position.
“This is tragic and an embarrassment,” Norris said of the contract.
Norris said he was also upset that he found out about the contract through the online news service FlaglerLive, which first wrote about Strobridge’s contract on June 2. Communications Director Brittany Kershaw told the Observer that the item was a last-minute addition to the meeting.
