23-04-2025
Palm Coast mayor gets no confidence vote after investigation shows charter violations
With a vacant seat front and center on the dais, the Palm Coast City Council unanimously approved a vote of no confidence in Mayor Mike Norris and agreed to censure him.
The decision stems from a 57-page report released April 21 regarding allegations that Norris violated the city charter, interfered with city employees and behaved unprofessionally.
Norris, who was sworn into office in November 2024, was notably absent from both business workshops April 22. He did not return a phone call or text from The News-Journal.
Adam Brandon of Lawson Huck Gonzalez, PLLC – a Tallahassee-based law firm – conducted the investigation and his summary of the accusations includes reviewed materials and statements from several current and former city officials, which point to Norris' alleged offenses.
Most notably, Brandon's report focuses on Norris' 'unilateral attempt to obtain the resignations of the acting city manager (Lauren Johnston) and chief of staff (Jason DeLorenzo),' which Brandon argued 'crossed the line into interference with operational and personnel decisions that Mayor Norris is not entitled to make in a council-manager form of government.'
Johnston told the investigator that Norris 'suggested as early as December 2024 that Jason DeLorenzo, Patrick Buckley, and others in the building department should be fired,' according to the report. 'However, Mayor Norris backed off once Ms. Johnston advised him that Mr. DeLorenzo was essential to the city's operations.'
Johnston also told Brandon that 'during a meeting on March 10, 2025, the mayor explicitly stated he had lost confidence and requested immediate resignations from her and Jason DeLorenzo,' which she described as a 'one-way conversation.'
The report also includes City Attorney Marcus Duffy's recollection of 'a conversation in which Mayor Norris told him, 'You've got to help me convince Lauren to fire Jason. He's at the top of the spiderweb of corruption.''
The "spiderweb of corruption" or just the "spiderweb," is a term used multiple times throughout the report in quotes from Norris or people quoting him. However there are no specifics or evidence of any such corruption in the report.
Duffy 'advised the mayor that he did not have the authority' to fire Johnston or DeLorenzo. According to the report, the city attorney also 'told Mayor Norris on three occasions that he could not interfere with city employees who are not charter officers, including the chief of staff.'
According to Brandon, Norris' alleged conduct 'likely meets the definition of inference under the charter.'
The Palm Coast city charter does not specify what could happen in case of interference by a City Council member 'in the operational and personnel decisions reserved to the city manager.'
Although it doesn't define the term 'interference,' the charter stipulates that such interference 'could constitute malfeasance,' which 'can generally lead to penalties such as removal from office, suspension, public censure, salary forfeiture, civil fines and restitution,' according to the report.
'While some of these penalties require a political process (e.g., a censure resolution adopted by a majority vote of the City Council), the Florida Commission on Ethics can also impose certain penalties,' Brandon's report added.
In his own statement to Brandon, included in the report, Norris claimed that there has been 'a lot of confusion' regarding his conversations with Johnston and DeLorenzo.
'I want to be clear: I did not demand their resignations,' Norris' statement reads, according to the report. 'City Attorney Marcus Duffy was on the phone during the conversation and may have assumed I was demanding they resign. That was not my intent. I never instructed Lauren to fire Jason, and I did not tell Marcus Duffy that he needed to resign either, though it's possible he interpreted my remarks that way.'
Norris acknowledged that he 'requested their resignations, but I did not demand them.'
'As the Mayor, I believe I have the right to request a resignation when I lose confidence in a staff member,' Norris continued. 'I recognize I do not have the authority to terminate employees, and I have never claimed otherwise.'
Brandon argued that Norris 'did not simply express a personal view or provide evidence of corruption by a city employee. Rather, Mayor Norris explicitly sought to pressure the acting city manager and chief of staff to submit their resignations.'
Brandon's report also includes accounts from 'numerous city employees, a former member of the City Council, and other citizens' who have reported what the investigator described as 'ethics violations, the creation of a hostile work environment for city employees, and other alleged unprofessional behavior' from the mayor.
Some of these accusations include:
'Inappropriate and profane comments directed at female staff.
Demeaning comments directed toward the communications and marketing department.
Alleged age discrimination.
Use of profanity and verbal intimidation.'
Accounts from city employees in the report refer to comments Norris allegedly made about a female city employee's toenail polish and another's professional attire.
Brittany Kershaw, the city's director of communications and marketing, accused Norris of 'berating the department's work on the Starlight Parade livestream, using profanity, calling the work 'garbage' and 'horse (expletive).'
According to the report, Norris apologized to the communications team and said he was 'kidding.'
'In the grand scheme of things, I don't really care about a video of a parade,' Norris wrote. 'I'm not trying to degrade your service. It's just a crappy video.'
Renina Fuller, the city's human resources director, reported a meeting where Norris 'explicitly advocated for hiring younger employees due to older employees being costly in health care benefits,' according to the report.
'The mayor's guidance, if followed, could have exposed the city to age-discrimination claims,' Brandon argued. 'However, I found no evidence of actual age discrimination by the city.'
In his defense, Norris claimed that he made a 'factual observation' that 'older employees cost more in benefits.'
'I never instructed the HR department to hire or fire anyone,' Norris wrote. 'I was simply pointing out that a younger workforce tends to cost less.'
Council members were disappointed with the results of the investigation, but not surprised. More importantly, they were ready to stop wasting time on issues with Norris and start working for the residents of Palm Coast.
"I don't want to be working on this," Councilman Ty Miller said three hours into the second meeting. "I want to be working on the city and getting the city better every day. Instead we're dealing with a constant distraction, trying to build trust while another person is trying to tear that apart."
Miller said Norris' absence, of which he didn't notify any city staff or fellow members, shows he's not willing to do the work and not willing "to confront things he may not like.
"If it's in a back room where he can intimidate someone and tell them what to do – certainly (he's) willing to do it. But not in public. We can't talk about it there."
Vice Mayor Theresa Carli Pontieri said she reached out to the mayor earlier in the morning to make sure he was OK, but he never responded.
She said Norris' actions have already taken a toll on the city, which is evident in candidates dropping out of the city manager search "and it's probably affecting people moving and investing in our community. These are not things that an investor wants to see – they want to see 'stability' and 'predictability.'"
She called Norris a "coward" for refusing to bring issues to the board for public discussion and instead calling "secret meetings."
"I don't think this is what the voters of Palm Coast genuinely voted for," Pontieri said. "The voters of Palm Coast did not vote for a dictator. The voters of Palm Coast did not vote for a mayor to come in and disregard the rules and the procedures set out in the city charter and not want to work with the board as a governing body, because that's what we are. We are a governing body and a republic. We are not part of a dictatorship."
Council members also brought up their disappointment with the state of the city address and Norris' inability to show leadership and collaborate with others.
Councilman Charles Gambaro, who made the motion for the censure and no-confidence vote, said he was especially concerned in the malfeasance finding and was disappointed in the mayor's behavior, as well as "the wild accusations against this council, members of our city staff which has been clearly documented and members of our community without any facts supporting his claims."
One example he gave included his interview on a local website in which he gave council members the middle finger.
Councilman David Sullivan, who was only recently appointed to the board, called Norris a "coarse bully."
"I look at it as the difference between the mayor and us is he has that title – mayor – he's supposed to be kind of the front person for the city," Sullivan said. "He gets one vote like all of us, but the little difference is he he gets elected citywide for the job. But he's not doing that job. He's actually having a negative impact on Palm Coast right now, not a positive impact and he doesn't seem to understand what his proper role should be. I think what we have here is a coarse bully. He's acting as a bully and usually that's the sign of somebody who has an inferiority complex."
The council discussed sending a formal letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis asking him to remove Norris from his post, but in the end, Gambaro made a motion to file a formal complaint to the Ethics Commission against Norris for malfeasance.
In the meantime, Brandon will give a presentation of his findings and council members will decide whether or not to finalize the letter to the governor.
At the conclusion of his report, Brandon made several recommendations to the City Council's course of action, including referring the matter for further review by the Florida Commission on Ethics and moving to censure Norris.
He also encouraged the city to 'strengthen the charter's enforcement mechanisms,' clarifying what punishment could result 'when elected officials engage in malfeasance or attempt to make operational and personnel decisions reserved to the city manager.'
He also recommended the City Council hire a permanent city manager 'who has been approved by a vote of the full City Council;' implement mandatory training on the city charter, Sunshine Law, ethics rules for public officers and more; support staff and whistleblower protections; and monitor 'concerns about the relationship between the City Council and city employees, including regular updates to the Council from the City Manager and Human Resources.'
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Palm Coast mayor gets unanimous no confidence vote
