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Residents raise legal, records concerns over golf-course deed restriction and personnel files at Flagler Beach meeting
Summary
Speakers urged the commission to ensure legal durability for a deed restriction on a 36-acre golf course and to investigate an alleged alteration of a former employee's personnel file; the city attorney and staff recommended contract language and referred the personnel matter to the labor attorney and Personnel Review Board.
RG Santore, a resident of 618 Cumberland Drive, urged the Flagler Beach City Commission to secure stronger legal protections for a 36-acre municipal golf course that is subject to a deed restriction intended to preserve it as golf-only. Santore said the restriction in the deed attempts to require that any future land-use approvals repeat the golf-only limitation and that discussion had included language requiring a unanimous commission vote to change it. He warned that, under Florida law, simple majorities can repeal ordinances and cited Florida Statute 166.041(4) and the state Supreme Court decision Hartnett v. Austin (1956) to argue that a unanimous-vote clause in a deed may not prevent later legislative changes.
Brian Mazzaro, who identified himself as the city's former facilities director, addressed the commission next with a separate concern about personnel-record integrity. Mazzaro said he found two different performance evaluations in his personnel file—one he said he never received or signed—and that he has supplemented his whistleblower complaint asking that both versions and documentation showing when and why the file was modified be preserved and reviewed by the Personnel Review Board.
City Attorney and city staff responded in public session. The attorney told the commission that contract-based deed restrictions can provide protections distinct from zoning, because an ordinance authorizing a contract or sale is administrative in character and the contractual terms can be enforced as private obligations; staff emphasized that contract language tying the deed restriction to future development approvals is intended to improve long-term notice and enforceability.
Officials also said they would not discuss details of ongoing personnel investigations in public. Staff confirmed the whistleblower process had been acknowledged and that the city's labor lawyer and the independent Personnel Review Board would examine the personnel-record questions Mazzaro raised.
