Mike Norris, the mayor of Palm Coast, took part in the rededication of the council chamber at City Hall as the Jon Netts Community Wing on June 3. Before his death in 2021, Netts had been mayor and a council member for 11 years, during which time he treated city employees with arms-length respect and the position with august dignity.
Norris filed a public record request on June 10 in an unprecedented investigation of the city’s top employees by its own mayor. The request sought to know all of the emails, texts, and phone conversations Acting Palm Coast City Manager Lauren Johnston had with Chief of Staff Jason DeLorenzo, local developers, county and sheriff’s officials, local media, and others since his election on November 6.
Any public figure can be the subject of a public record request, and the majority of their records—including written and phone correspondence—are available for viewing. Given his recent censure for administrative interference and other misconduct, it is uncommon and, in Flagler County governments, almost unheard of, if not inappropriate, for an elected official to attempt to question his own city manager’s administrative record in such a broad manner.
Earlier this year, Norris tried to fire Johnston and DeLorenzo in a private meeting, which was against the city charter. This led to an independent investigation and the mayor’s censure by the City Council, which states that he is not allowed to interfere with city management other than through communication with the city manager. His strategies don’t seem to have changed as a result of the criticism. All it has done is divert them.
Norris declines to interact with Johnston in any way other than the most superficial. He forwarded his request to Kaley Cook, the city clerk, even though it was written for Johnston.
Norris, who has frequently referred to the criticism and critique of his mayorship as a witch hunt, asked for Johnston’s correspondence with DeLorenzo, Paul Rice, the director of Rayonier Real Estate Development, and Douglas Properties. Among their duties are Jeff Douglas and Walker Douglas, County Tourim Director Amy Lukasik, Palm Coast land use attorney Michael Chiumento, Flagler County Sheriff’s Chief Mark Strobridge, who is currently the acting assistant city manager Sheriff Rick Staly, Brian Finn of the Sheriff’s Office, who serves as the city’s liaison with the agency, FlaglerLive Editor Pierre Tristam, the Director of the Palm Coast Historical Society Reasa Pabst, and Danielle Anderson, who both runs Flagler Newsweekly and is a member of the Flagler County Cultural Council.
His list includes a number of names that the independent investigator spoke with. Although the request was made a week after Norris discovered that Johnston was bringing Strobridge on as her assistant manager for a few months, it is unclear why other names, including those of sheriff’s employees, are on the list in addition to media contacts who are implicated in Norris’s conspiracy web of accusations. Despite refusing to meet with Johnston for months, Norris was not consulted on the issue since he had been on vacation for a considerable amount of time.
In a text message today, Johnston stated, “I remain at the pleasure of council and accessible to information including the mayor.” The mayor has not responded to my invitation to meet with him and help with any questions he might have.
Norris’s request was enormous. On June 16, Cook told him she had found 2,949 records and that it would take roughly 41 hours to go through them all to make sure nothing that wasn’t covered by the state’s public record legislation was in them. An estimated $1,720 would be spent on the evaluation, which would be done at an hourly rate of $41.96. (Local governments are permitted to charge the lowest possible hourly rate for reviewing documents, but they frequently increase the cost of unnecessary requests—not merely to be safe with an estimate, but also frequently out of annoyance or resistance.)
Three minutes later, Norris replied, “Please give me an estimate for just text messages from her city and personal phone(s).”
About 400 of the messages were rather improbable: on average, text messages were only slightly longer than poorly written haikus, and reviewing them would take 6.5 hours and cost $273. Since Norris did not follow up, there were no more discussions on the expense, and the city actually attested that no documents had been removed.
He was informed last Friday that FlaglerLive had asked for his requests, and as he is the main keeper of his own records, we cc’d him to let him know that we were looking into it. Since the city is not permitted to charge twice for a service that has already been completed, FlaglerLive’s record request was restricted to Norris’s requests and his conversations regarding them, not any other records he might have obtained. However, anything he would have paid for would later be made freely available to anybody.
