The Palm Coast City Council held their morning business meeting on Tuesday, October 15th, at 9 am. During this meeting, the council heard presentations on the debt policies, swales, and a multitude of comments from the community regarding the flooding of roads, yards, houses, and road construction off of Rymfire, to name a few.
The City of Palm Coast heard a presentation on stormwater and their request for a loan to complete projects that they said would help catch the system up. In the presentation, stormwater provided information on how their funds are spent and what they have been doing throughout the year, which includes hiring a third swale team to help with maintenance. Currently, the stormwater department can maintain roughly 40 miles of canals a year, which is up from 2017, when they were only able to maintain 7 miles per year. Residents took the time to speak up, with some speakers providing photographs of the flooding both in the streets and even in homes. Emotions ran high during public comment as residents spoke up about how this flooding has affected their lives. Pontieri went on to comment that the entire board, including Danko, Alfin, and Klufas, have all been a part of the problem by allowing rezoning variances that increase densities. Pontieri continued explaining that overall, she was impressed with the stormwater. However, there are problem areas that do need solutions to the flooding issues. Pontieri also stated that this council had prioritized ten new hires for the stormwater; she continued by moving to a moratorium on building in Palm Coast for one year, as well as a workshop from Stormwater on their projects and how those projects will help the impacted areas. Klufas agreed that there are problem areas but then stated that Pontieri also refused to raise Utility Rates earlier in the year, whereas Pontieri refused to raise resident rates and opted to raise impact fees, also citing the legal implications that can happen with a moratorium. Gambaro commented that the wastewater issues are in dire need of work and need to be handled immediately. The motion for a moratorium on residential buildings in Palm Coast for one year or until the wastewater, water, and stormwater are caught up. The motion was not seconded and failed, but there was consensus to move forward with the Stormwater workshop at a future agenda.
