- December 13, 2025
It took 104 votes over nine hours before Will Furry emerged as Flagler County School Board’s new vice chair.
The board’s annual reorganization meeting began at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 18. It ended at 3 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 19.
Furry and Lauren Ramirez were deadlocked for 103 votes until Ramirez finally decided to throw in the towel, withdrawing her nomination, which Furry had asked her to do several times throughout the night.
The board is awaiting Gov. Ron DeSantis to appoint a new School Board member to replace Derek Barrs, who resigned on Sept. 30 to become head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. In the meantime, Flagler Schools has just four board members, making a tie vote possible. On Tuesday evening, and into Wednesday morning, it happened 105 times.
It took three votes for Christy Chong to be voted in as the board’s new chair, replacing Furry, who had been chairman for the past two years.
Chong was sworn in by Flagler County Judge Andrea Totten. Furry walked over to Chong and handed her his gavel, and Chong took the chairperson’s seat on the dais, next to Superintendent LaShakia Moore.
Furry had nominated Chong for the chair position. The two have served on the board together for three years. Ramirez and Janie Ruddy each nominated themselves. After two identical votes with Chong receiving two votes — from herself and Furry — and Ramirez and Ruddy each voting for themselves, Ramirez asked Chong if she became chairwoman, would she attend the Florida School Boards Association’s chairmanship training programs and bring back what she learned to the other board members. Chong said she is planning to do that.
Ramirez has earned 70 FSBA board member training credits during the past year and has been named by the association as an Emerging Leader. She was one of 16 new school board members in Florida this year to earn that distinction.
On the third vote, Ramirez voted for both Chong and herself, giving Chong the necessary three votes to be chair.
With Moore running the reorganization portion of the business meeting, Chong nominated Furry to be vice chair and Ramirez and Ruddy each nominated themselves again.
Chong noted that Furry, who is running for Congress, won’t be running for a second term on the board.
“He’s very strong. He’s been the chair for two years, and I support Mr. Furry to be vice chair. And I’d love to support one of you next year,” Chong said to Ruddy and Ramirez.
Ruddy voted for herself and Ramirez on the second vote. On the third vote, Ruddy voted only for Ramirez. She would do so through vote No. 104. Moore repeated dozens of times: “We will move forward with consideration of a vice chair. We have two candidates before us.” Each time, the vote was split with Chong and Furry on one side and Ruddy and Ramirez on the other.
Ramirez said this was an opportunity for a new board member to be in a leadership position, “so we can continue growing as a board.”
Furry noted that he was nominated by another board member while Ramirez nominated herself and said Ramirez is not ready for the role.
“In time you can fill that role,” he said. “Now is not the time.”
But two years ago, Furry was a first-year board member running for chair against Colleen Conklin, who had been on the board for 23 years. Furry won the position, gaining votes from the two other first-year board members — Chong and Sally Hunt.
“I’m voting for myself,” Ramirez said, “because I know I’m the right person for this role.”
After the 10th vote, Moore recommended that they table the vote for vice chair and bring it forward at a future board meeting. The board agreed to move on with the rest of the business and reconvene the reorganization meeting at the end.
But before that meeting could be reconvened, Patty Wormeck, the district’s chief financial officer, informed the board that after a call to the district’s bond attorney, she was told that not having a full slate of officers for the board’s Leasing Corporation could negatively affect the district’s bond ratings. Traditionally the board chair is selected as the Leasing Corporation’s president and the vice chair is named the corporation’s vice president.
The annual meeting to name the Leasing Corporation’s officers follows the reorganization meeting. So, not having a vice chair would have “real world impact,” Wormeck said.
Board attorney David Delaney said, according to corporation bylaws the board does have discretion to select a different vice president. However, board policy requires that a vice chair be selected before the end of November. With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, the board could not agree on a date to reconvene before the end of the month.
Furry said he would not agree to move the vote to another day in any situation.
“Board policy says we need to elect the vice chair tonight,” he said.
At 10 p.m., they voted for vice chair for the 35th time.
This is getting ridiculous. Are we going to sit here till Thanksgiving?
— CHRISTY CHONG
After the 41st vote, Chong said she was concerned about everyone’s safety driving home. Soon after, many of the district staff members and the two student board members went home. Only a few in attendance stayed to the end.
Ruddy called for a recess to another day.
“I don’t see how we are going to make progress tonight. I don’t see any movement,” she said.
Vote after vote, Chong and Furry voted aye for Furry and Ruddy and Ramirez voted aye for Ramirez with none of the four board members budging from their position.
After midnight, DeLaney suggested a possible timeshare with each candidate taking on the role for half the year. Furry said that would be a “strange precedent.”
“We have to finish this tonight,” Furry said. “We have to. It is our duty.”
The vice chair’s role is a limited one, only leading the board meetings if the chair is absent, but neither Furry nor Ramirez were willing to withdraw.
Moore put the vote to a question six times in a row, Nos. 89-94, and then after more fruitless discussion, she repeated the question nine more times: Nos. 95-103.
“This is getting ridiculous,” Chong said. “Are we going to sit here till Thanksgiving?”
But to that point, if Furry and Ramirez were not budging from their positions, neither were Chong or Ruddy.
Finally, before vote No. 104, Ramirez relented.
“I know who the right person would be for that role, but if you want to take it,” she said to Furry, “I’ll be fighting for you.”
On the final vote, Ramirez voted neigh for both Furry and herself. Delaney said her choices were either to vote for Furry to give him a majority or to withdraw. She withdrew.
