The Filing Record Does Not Lie

The council established three legislative priorities in ranked order. The state funding request record establishes which one was actually treated as Priority 1.

On August 17, 2021, the Palm Coast City Council adopted Resolution 2021-XX, formally approving three legislative priorities to be submitted to the Northeast Florida Regional Planning Council for inclusion in the regional appropriations agenda. The vote was four to zero. The priorities were numbered. They were submitted in that order.

Priority 1: PEP tank power restoration — pre-treatment septic systems serving thirty thousand Palm Coast residents who lose wastewater capability during power outages. Priority 2: Old Kings Road construction. Priority 3: Transportation access to the west — what would become the loop road.

The mechanism by which a Florida municipality converts a legislative priority into a state appropriation is called a Local Funding Initiative Request — an LFIR. It is a formal document filed with the Florida Senate Appropriations Committee. It is signed. It is dated. It is posted publicly the moment it is received. R. Whitmore Gaines has explained what an LFIR is and how to find one. That explanation is in the Backgrounders section of this site. What follows here is what the filing record shows.

For fiscal year 2023-24, a Local Funding Initiative Request was filed for the loop road. The senate sponsor was Travis Hutson. The lobbyist was Laura E. Boehmer of The Southern Group — the firm retained by the City of Palm Coast. The request was for funds to begin construction of Phase 3 of the Palm Coast Parkway Extension. The appropriation was secured. Twenty-five million dollars.

For fiscal year 2024-25, another LFIR was filed for the loop road. The senate sponsor was again Travis Hutson. The lobbyist was again The Southern Group. Phase 3 construction was the stated purpose. The appropriation was secured. Eighty million dollars.

During that same period — fiscal years 2023-24 and 2024-25 — no LFIR was filed for the PEP tank power restoration project. Not one. Priority 1 received no state funding request in either year.

For fiscal year 2025-26, an LFIR was filed for the PEP tanks. The filing date was March 6, 2025. The requester was Lauren Johnston, Assistant City Manager, City of Palm Coast. The senate sponsor was Thomas Leek. The lobbyist was Laura E. Boehmer of The Southern Group — the same firm that filed the loop road requests. The amount requested: $4,750,000.

The date of the council resolution establishing Priority 1 was August 17, 2021. The date of the first LFIR ever filed for Priority 1 was March 6, 2025. The elapsed time between those two dates is three years, six months, and seventeen days.

Question 8 on the LFIR form asks: “Has this project previously received state funding?” The answer entered on the Priority 1 filing: No.

The loop road — Priority 3 — received $105 million in state appropriations across two fiscal years before Priority 1 received its first dollar. The PEP tanks — the council’s stated top priority, serving thirty thousand residents — received nothing from the state until four years after the council voted to make it Priority 1.

The documents establishing these facts are in the Evidence Locker: LFIR #3245 for the loop road, LFIR #3181 for the PEP tanks, and the August 17, 2021 council minutes confirming the numbered priority structure. Each document is a public record of the State of Florida or the City of Palm Coast.

The council said Priority 1 was first. The filing record shows something filed for Priority 3 first, funded Priority 3 first, and returned to Priority 3 for a second round before Priority 1 had a single LFIR on file.

Priority 1 waited three years, six months, and seventeen days for its first filing. Priority 3 did not wait at all. The record does not explain why. It simply shows what happened, in the order that it happened, with the dates attached.

Draw your own conclusions. The numbers already did.