Democracy was born in Green Cove Springs this week. The baby kicked, fussed and cried so loudly she was heard from the BP Station to the Shands Bridge. City Manager Steve Kennedy took one look, realized he wasn’t the daddy, and instantly declared, “I’m outta here!”
After 48 years in government, the past seven here in Green Cove, Kennedy announced his retirement on Wednesday.
During Kennedy’s tenure—and for decades before—Green Cove’s City Council operated as an oligarchy. You know, that word we usually associate with Russia and other non-democratic nations. The concept, however, is scaleable downward. Instead of billionaire energy-sector CEOs, Green Cove’s most recent oligarchs were a real estate entrepreneur, a local fishing-line distributor, a security executive and a coffee shop owner and bean-monger.
There has usually been a leader from the African-American community as well.
The council had a knack for almost never disagreeing. The votes were unrelentingly 5-0, 5-0, 5-0. When there was a rare 4-1 vote, everyone kinda chuckled. Statements made before the votes were perfunctory moments of Democracy theater. Kumbaya.
There are only two ways to achieve this kind of unanimity and still comply with Florida’s Sunshine laws (three, if you consider group clairvoyance). The city manager could brief each councilor individually to ensure everyone was on the same page for an upcoming vote (legal), or the councilors could talk among themselves prior to a public meeting, say, over the telephone (illegal).
At one point, a Kennedy minion distributed a memo to councilors advising them to avoid being too honest with constitutents because it only agitates them. Here’s how the quiet part was said out loud:
City Council members are encouraged to avoid sharing their personal opinions on City Council decisions when interacting with the public, as the Council is perceived as a unified body by the community.
Working in this “unified” environment, the Kennedy Era was without outward drama. And it had its accomplishments. Once upon a time, it could have been said that the city’s electrical system offered “Third-World service at First-World prices.” Now, that’s only half true, the bit about price.
Dreams of rebranding Green Cove as the little Paris of Northeast Florida were furthered with business friendly improvements to Walnut Street, which are to continue westward over the next couple of years, bringing in a bakery, brewery and a restaurant to be named later.
Kennedy also oversaw the $1.3 million renovation of the Augusta Savage Arts & Community Center, completed in December 2023.
Residents Frustrated
Meanwhile, residents who had bought homes for $130,000 a decade ago have seen the values double and triple with concomitant increases in taxes and insurance. Folks can hardly afford to stay, but with entry-level homes in Clay County’s new housing developments starting at $300,000, they can’t afford to move either.
This is happening all over Florida, of course, but here people are associating their pain with “gentrification.” That has come with increasingly zealous code enforcement. Homeowners have had to ask themselves: Why didn’t we just move into a gated community to begin with?
Then, there was that coup d’état. Kennedy oversaw the removal and replacement of the former police chief for unstated and still mysterious reasons, despite what the ex-chief says was an unbroken record of positive performance evaluations. Then, he was told to resign.
All across the U.S., there are non-partisan public bodies like our city council attended by individuals critical of status-quo policymaking. These “gadflies” make the time to understand the issues and advocate for reform. For years, Green Cove seemed to lack this kind of spirited instigator. As more than one person has observed, “Why should we go to council meetings, why bother? They just do what they want anyway.”
No more. Today, there are at least two pains in the butt in play. One is former city Finance Director Sue Heath and the others is Mike Kelter, a former Army officer and civil engineer, who was himself a city councilor for six years.
Of late, Heath and Kelter have channeled the frustrations of city residents as they face rising utility costs, taxes and fees. Also, former councilor (and, yes, former oligarch) Van Royal has taken on the mantle of quasi-gadfly, something akin to the British concept of loyal opposition.
This year, Green Cove got three new city councilors, two in May, another in August. One is a serious guy named Darren Stutts, who operates an automotive body shop smack in the middle of the city’s future cafe district. During recent budget deliberations, this trio was inclined to bring relief to homeowners by lowering taxes a bit.
Budget Debacle
The details are too complicated to rehash here in their entirety. Suffice it to say, the budget debate in the council turned into what Heath called a “three-ring circus.” The council was about to go 3-2 for lower taxes but ended up being 4-1 to keep last year’s rate, with Stutts being the odd man out. Heath described two of the new councilors—Glee Glisson and Cheryl Starnes—as if they were deer caught in headlights:
Staff gave the council incorrect information and totally confused Council member Glisson. Nobody corrected the information staff gave council so Glisson changed her vote. She originally voted for the lower millage rate. I feel sorry for the new council members because they are led to believe certain facts and are given different facts which caused them to be confused so they will vote along with the other council members.
They made Glisson think that if she voted for the lower millage rate, the employees would not get raises so she changed her vote, thereby raising ad valorem taxes on citizens so employees could get raises. This was not the case, but she was led to believe that if she didn’t vote for the higher millage rate, employees would not get their three percent COLA raises. This was not the case, as employees could still get raises with the lower millage rate. IT WAS A TOTAL JOKE…
I don’t know what to say about Councilmember Starnes, as at the beginning of the meeting she was for the lower millage and the raises and then voted the other way. Total mystery.
Late last week, Stutts called a special meeting of the council without really specifying what it would be about, but everyone knew he was pissed off. The meeting was scheduled for last night, a Thursday. On Wednesday, Kennedy announced his retirement, effective mid-November.
As it happened, Stutts used last night’s special session to channel those 1970s rockers The Who, specifically their hit song “We Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
He and Councilor Ed Gaw bitched and bickered at each other, as Stutts accused Gaw and the city manager of tricking Starnes and Glisson and making them feel that forcing the city staff to revise the budget for a lower tax rate would have been somehow rude.
Kennedy spoke in rebuttal, which included the phrase “not to be a smart aleck.” (Of course, as a short-timer, he could be as sarcastic as he wanted.) The councilors, he said, were confused only because they hadn’t done their homework. If they hadn’t understood the budget numbers, all they had to do was ask his staff. Kennedy said something to the effect of, “That’s the way it works.”
And that’s the way Democracy works. It’s messy. Issues are debated. Debates become heated. There is sarcasm. Sometimes, people apologize. Sometimes, they don’t. The naive get played. The best persuader usually has the best chance of winning. If constituents don’t feel they’re winning, too, they can vote the bums out.
Manager Wanted
This new, less unified council will now have to recruit the next city manager, even as the city’s new police chief is still getting his footing, even as a new city planner just walked in the door (in the middle of the brawl).
Kennedy’s legacy depends on whom you ask.
To Gaw and former councilors Van Royal, Felicia Hampshire and Steven Kelley, Kennedy has been a superb technocrat who steadily steered the city toward its goals, worth every cent of his $175,000 annual salary.
Mike Kelter sees it differently. “The next city manager has an unenviable job. Rebuilding the financial integrity of our city and its utility funds will be a nightmare. The trust between the city government and the citizens will be difficult to repair,” he said.