- December 4, 2025
Palm Coast has narrowed its city manager search to twelve candidates, four of which have support from four of the five council members.
The council received 112 applications for the position and the council members were asked to submit at most 25 names for further consideration. To ensure a chosen applicant had a full support of the entire council, the Palm Coast City Council decided during the Aug. 26 workshop to only review applicants that had the support of at least three of the five council members.
That left 11 applicants. At the Sept. 9 meeting, Councilman Charles Gambaro asked the other council members for consensus to add candidate Norman West of Flagler Beach to the list as well.
West was one of only two applicants that Gambaro submitted support for, the other being Anthony Schembri, who received support from four of the five council members. West, a U.S. Air Force brigadier general, also had the support of Councilman Ty Miller.
Gambaro advocated for West’s consideration, stating the man has extensive budgeting and management experience through his command in the military.
“This is somebody that knows, as an executive, that knows how to manage staff, that knows how to manage budgets, and has done it under austere conditions,” Gambaro said. “When I look at an executive out of all the applicants that we received, Mr. Schembri and Mr. West were the two that really jumped out at me.”
Vice Mayor Theresa Carli Pontieri was against adding an additional name, but only because the council had decided on a way to move forward and adding West’s name would make
“I certainly don't think that we should be adding anybody additional that has not made it through this first step, because that was the agreed upon process,” she said.
Miller, Mayor Mike Norris and Councilman Dave Sullivan agreed to consider West’s name, adding the man to the list of candidates.
Next, each council member will submit two questions to the Human Resources director to give to the candidates, for a total of 10 questions. The 12 applicants – or those who are still interested in the position – will have until Sept. 18 to submit 30-minute video responses with their answers to the questions.
From there, the City Council will review the responses and narrow the field further at the Sept. 23 meeting after the council reviews the candidate responses.
Palm Coast has been searching for a new city manager since March 2024. Lauren Johnston, the then-assistant city manager, was installed as the acting city manager and Palm Coast hired a search firm to find candidates for the position. Because of the November 2024 elections, the search was delayed until the new council had been elected.
In May 2025, the council held five separate votes on the final two candidates remaining, hoping to get unanimous approval for one. All five votes deadlocked in 3-2 splits and the council decided to instead place the position on public job search sites to see who would apply.
The top four candidates are Charles Jackson of Augusta, Georgia, Michael McGlothlin of Largo, Florida, Thomas Thomas of Bloomington Illinois, and Schembri of Venice, Florida. All but Schembri were selected by Norris, Pontieri, Miller and Sullivan while Schembri was selected by Gambaro but not Sullivan.
According to their resumes, Jackson currently serves as the deputy administrator for August-Richmond County in Georgia and has 25 years of local government leadership experience. McGlothlin has 40 years of experience and was most recently the town administrator for Redington Shores, Florida.
Thomas’ last position as city manager of Compton, California ended in 2023, but he has 25 years of city and county management experience. Schembri is now a professor at the University of South Florida, but last served as county administrator in Citrus County. According to his LinkedIn, that was in 2009. He has over 30 years of public service experience.
