PALM COAST
Observer YOU. YOUR NEIGHBORS. YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
VOLUME 6, NO.38
FREE
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FPC ROYALTY J.C. Sheffield and Parker Allen are the FPC homecoming king and queen.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2015
Public spooking
What’s the scariest part about Halloween? Missing out on the best haunted happenings! We’ve got you covered. Find out when and where to get your spook on. PAGE 3 INSIDE SAFER STREETS
‘I love you, dawg’:
There aren’t any easy answers to the question of how to make streets safer for kids, according to City Manager Jim Landon. PAGE 4
FRIENDSHIP One player’s love for special needs kids has led to an extraordinary friendship.
Hotel, restaurant coming to SR 100?
JEFF DAWSEY SPORTS EDITOR
The proposed change will also come before the Palm Coast City Council for a vote. JONATHAN SIMMONS NEWS EDITOR
A vacant plot of land at the southwest corner of Interstate 95 and State Road 100 in Palm Coast may soon host a restaurant and three hotel buildings. The Palm Coast Planning and Land Development Regulation Board at its Wednesday, Oct. 21, meeting voted in favor of a zoning change from agricultural to highintensity commercial to allow for new businesses on a 1.1-acre parcel of land near the intersection, and voted for a Comprehensive Plan amendment to change the land’s future-land-use designation from greenbelt to mixed use. The board’s vote itself doesn’t finalize the changes: The proposals must still go before the City Council for a vote at a public meeting. The small parcel in question, which sits just west of the southbound I-95 entrance ramp, borders 9.4 acres of mixed-use land at the I-95 and S.R. 100 intersection, owned by the same company, MPC Lots LLC. MPC Lots wants to develop the 9.4-acre plot and predicts the development to spill over into the 1.1-acre parcel. SEE HOTEL PAGE 5
A SPECIAL
Jeff Dawsey
Michael Bailey and Daniel Dillard
Michael Bailey is a student with special needs at Matanzas High School. He knows very little about football, other than that his best friend, Daniel Dillard, plays, and he has wanted to see him in action since the beginning of the season. Bailey got his wish on the Pirates’ senior night, where he attended a football game for the first time in his life. “This whole year, I’ve been trying to get him to a football game,” Dillard said “Every time I mention it to him, he like jumps out his wheel chair!” When Dillard approached Bailey on the track, his beaming expression could’ve lit the football field for the night, although he sees Dillard every day at school. At the beginning of the school year, Dillard went to the guidance office to see if he could help a special needs class, so he was sent to Bailey’s room. “I’ve always loved being around special needs kids,” he said. “In eighth grade, I gave up my gym
DID YOU KNOW?
Daniel Dillard is the second leading rusher in the area with 959 yards and eight touchdowns.
period to help out with them, and always would from ninth to 11th to have a class to be around them, but it never really worked out.” After a week of attending the class, Dillard noticed that Bailey was the only kid who could talk, so they instantly became friends. “He says, ‘Yes,’ ‘No,’ ‘What’s up, dawg?’ and smiles a lot,” Dillard said. “Since I couldn’t really talk to the others, I just talked to him because he would always pay attention to me and laugh at my dumb jokes.” “(Dillard) came in the classroom, even when it wasn’t his time, as a teacher assistant, and he developed a bond with Michael,” said Sandra Oliva, Bailey’s teacher. “We didn’t know how we were going to make this happen, so we got Coach (Rich) Weber on board, SEE ‘MY PROUDEST’ PAGE 11
Merely a ‘political ploy’? Nobile responds JONATHAN SIMMONS NEWS EDITOR
In an Oct. 27 City Council workshop, Councilman Steve Nobile took aim at Councilman Jason DeLorenzo’s assertion during a council meeting a week earlier that Nobile’s push for a Charter review was, as DeLorenzo put it, “a political ploy, and nothing more than that.” Responding at the Oct. 27 meeting, Noble read the following prepared statement, saying before he did so, “I apologize for this, but I have to make this state-
ment”: “I believe that this council was diminished last week when council member DeLorenzo declared that my motives for seeking the Charter review were impure. “While council meeting policy and procedures forbid questioning the motives of another council member, Mr. DeLorenzo chose to break this protocol without any evidence and publicly attack my credibility. “In fact, I was elected to office with a great amount of support. While I won’t speculate on what motivated Mr. DeLorenzo to take
this publicly embarrassing position, I will offer that it demonstrates a collapse of leadership and debate skills which are necessary to lead this city. “It is my position that none of us should face such an impulsive affront to our sincerity, integrity or competence, especially from one another on the council. We invite suspicion and distrust from the citizens of Palm Coast and destroy their confidence in us, if this council tolerates attacks of this nature. “Conversely, a Charter review has the opposite effect — of ren-
Steve Nobile
dering the council transparent and willing to accept the scrutiny of the true owners of Palm Coast and how we operate as stewards on their behalf. For such an action, there can not be any distrust.”