Palm Coast Mayor Faced with Results of Investigation

The Palm Coast City Council on Thursday was presented with a summary of the independent investigation recently held about alleged misconduct by Mayor Mike Norris. Norris was accused of a series of wrongdoings, including inappropriate conduct with staff and violations of Palm Coast’s city charter. Little concrete action was taken during Thursday’s special meeting, though the Council voted on several motions. The discussion at multiple junctures became more of a spectacle than a sterile reflection, with impassioned residents both for and against Norris frequently vocalizing from the audience. Norris himself apologized for potentially offensive behavior, but also devoted a significant portion of the meeting to defending his character, credentials, and actions. He even at one point listed the number of terrorists he’d killed in the armed services. Click Here to Read the Results of the Mike Norris Investigation Adam Brandon Presents the Investigation The presenter for the Council was Adam Brandon, an attorney with the Lawson Huck Gonzalez firm who investigated the Norris allegations. Brandon prepared and delivered a 50-page report to the City Council a couple weeks ago, mostly affirming that the mayor had indeed committed the malfeasance he was accused of. Brandon recommended a series of actions for the Council to take: refer the matter for further review, consider a censure, strengthen the city charter’s consequences for violations, hire a new city manager to restore a healthy work environment, old more training on the charter rules, support protections for whistleblowers, and hold regular updates on compliance with the rules. The Council in part has already taken some of these actions. They voted to censure Norris, they voted no confidence in him, and they voted to draft a letter to be sent to the Florida Commission on Ethics. They attempted, with little success, to hire a city manager on Tuesday. In one of the meeting’s more hectic side-tracks, Mayor Norris at one point passed the gavel to Vice Mayor Theresa Carli Pontieri and motioned to hold an emergency closed-door meeting on Friday about a purported quid pro quo he’d received to enact the city policy of the previous Council. His colleagues asserted, correctly, that there was no basis to hold such a meeting outside of the public view, and ultimately agreed to attach it to the agenda of this coming Tuesday’s meeting. Norris had been worried about violating confidentiality of some involved parties. Mike Norris vs. the City of Palm Coast What became apparent on Thursday was that the relationship between Norris and his City Council colleagues, plus high-ranking city staff, was in crisis. Also made known: at least amongst those who attended the meeting, the city had not sold the necessity of the investigation to its residents. Many questioned why the matter rose above a simple human resources investigation, and several accused the other City Council members of wrongdoing for a variety of reasons. Norris at one point asked Palm Coast Human Resources Director Renina Fuller flatly if she had intentionally worked to compile charges against him. Fuller, who’d already answered a series of questions in the last several minutes, sternly told Norris that she had not. The conversation then pivoted to an interaction between acting City Manager Lauren Johnston and Mayor Norris, in which they’d discussed the practices of Flagler Sheriff Rick Staly and Norris had asked to keep it between them. As Johnston had mentioned to Staly characterizations Norris made about him in that interaction, Norris reminded her that he considered it a breach of trust. He began to allude to his desire to fire her over that transgression if he had the authority to do so. The Heart of the Allegations The authority of Norris to fire city staff, or interfere with their duties, was the linchpin of the investigation and the crux of the most serious accusation made against him. He’d been accused of initiating a conversation in which he demanded the resignations of Johnston and of Palm Coast Chief of Staff Jason DeLorenzo. City Attorney Marcus Duffy, who frequently acted as a check on Norris during the meeting, witnessed the conversation. Norris held that he had not demanded, but instead requested, these resignations. Adam Brandon said in no uncertain terms that regardless of which it was, it appeared to be a blatant violation of the city charter. On more than one occasion Norris and his supporters in public comments diverted the conversation toward Norris’ conversational style, and the cultural gaps that come from his long-term military service. While this was a major component of the investigation, the ability of the Council to conclude that Norris committed malfeasance ultimately hinged more on his alleged attempts to fire Johnston and DeLorenzo than on his potentially rude verbiage. Those accusations were merely problematic and offensive, whereas the other could implicate him in having violated his oath of office. In an extreme situation, it could result in him being removed from office at the discretion of Gov. Ron DeSantis. Landing the Meeting Councilman Charles Gambaro motioned on Thursday to send a letter directly to DeSantis requesting Norris’ removal. He’d already floated the idea once, but settled for the compromise of drafting a letter to the Ethics Commission instead. The rest of the Council remained content with that act, and so Gambaro’s motion failed 4-1. He received fury from some residents, a predictable outcome for someone appointed by a previous Council under contested legal authority attempting to initiate the removal of a man who was elected by the voters. Councilman David Sullivan also received criticism from commenter Kathy Austrino, who’d run for mayor in 2021 and for the City Council in 2024. She painted Sullivan (who was listening in virtually as he recovered from a medical procedure) as a hypocrite for voting to censure Norris when he hadn’t done the same for controversial County Commissioner Joe Mullins when the two served together some years ago. The meeting ended on two final moments of note. Firstly, City Attorney Marcus Duffy revealed that he’d sent a draft of the Council’s letter to the Florida Commission on Ethics to every Council member except Norris. While Duffy’s rationale could be envisioned – it wasn’t Norris who’d requested the letter and he was not present when it was agreed upon – his exclusion of the mayor was bemoaned and seemed to erode public trust in his impartiality. Finally, Lauren Johnston devoted her closing comments to implore the Council for patience with one another, a solution-oriented approach, and an emphasis on doing right by the community. For a Council as divided as any in recent memory, the coming weeks will reveal whether her advice will be heeded.