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Armando Martinez
(Note: Articles Appear in Reverse Chronological Order)
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fixed incomes, those who have lost their job or have had their pay or work hours cut) I didn’t
think it right to ask Bunnell taxpayers to fund ‘merit’ pay increases for city employees. Do you?”
Tucker had no such concerns when it came time to give himself and the rest of the commission a
100 percent raise a few years ago. Commissioners and the mayor voted together to double their
pay, to nearly $10,000 a year, and bring it in line with the pay of commissioners in Palm Coast, a
city with 25 times the population of Bunnell. Tucker was even defiant about his vote approving
his raise: “I’m worth every dime that I get paid for this job,” he said at the time. “Here’s the final
analysis. The people don’t like us, they need to vote us out and get the salaries back to $4,800.”
Tucker raised a total of $1,100, all but $300 from himself. He got a $250 check from Jay
Beggelman of Palm Coast, and a $50 check from Diane Minotti, who also donated $50 to Henry.
Minotti is married to Perry Mitrano, the city’s solid waste director who owes his job, in part, to
Tucker’s support of Bunnell resuming those services.
Daisy Henry
Henry’s Feb. 6 letter notes the creation of the solid waste department and the hiring of City
Manager Armando Martinez, whom Henry does not name but credits for being a qualified
manager. Martinez brought on a strong administrative staff and placed the city on a stronger
footing after years of instability and poor management. But it’s just as true that Henry’s long
tenure on the commission oversaw Bunnell’s more wayward years.
The rest of her letter makes general statements about the city’s business friendliness, its ability to
get grants and its special events, none of which entailed Henry’s direct or, in most cases, indirect
involvement. “Even though you don’t hear or read anything I say in the media I am silently
working in your behalf,” she claims. If so, she works in mysterious ways.
Henry can be fierce, passionate and pious, but only concerning matters that concern her directly,
if not personally. Her commission colleagues never give her leadership responsibilities,
condescending instead to let her pray or speak her mind on occasions, but little more. There is no
mystery to her successive reelections: she is black, and as such enjoys the only solid, unwavering
constituency in the city with the highest proportion of black residents in the county—and the
only city still with a black ghetto. Bunnell’s South Side, where Henry lives, is a blight of
poverty, crime and political indifference unparalleled anywhere in Flagler. It’s also her base.
(Palm Coast is relatively well integrated, and Flagler Beach has no ghetto because it banned
blacks from living there until recently; few do anyway).
Yet when Carver Gym, the one unquestionably positive icon that stands out as a service to South
Side residents, was threatened with closure by the County Commission in 2010, it wasn’t Henry
who led the battle to save it. She was vocal and organized her own neighborhood’s grass roots,
but it did not go further than that. Nor did her colleagues entrust her with that battle. After a
failed attempt by Bunnell Vice Mayor Jenny Crain-Brady to lead the effort, it was Barbara
Revels, the county commissioner (and a long-time Flagler Beach resident) who took up the fight,
and won it. It’s still Revels more than anyone who’s keeping Carver Gym’s organizational
structure and funding solid.
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