The Flagler County Commission on Monday deliberated for a considerable length of time about how to prepare for the impending retirement of County Attorney Al Hadeed. Their longtime legal counsel will be stepping down on August 1st, prompting the county to both appoint an interim and begin the search for a permanent successor.
The conversation revolved around how to handle Deputy County Attorney Sean Moylan, who is an applicant for the permanent job. Different commissioners held differing opinions on whether having Moylan be a 90-day interim county attorney could dissuade other applicants who’d be competing against him. The permanent county attorney job has been posted with a salary range of $175,000 to $250,000.
Circular Deliberation
Commission Chair Andy Dance and Vice Chair Leann Pennington. ⓒ AskFlagler
Briefly the commissioners considered whether an interim county attorney was fully necessary, with Hadeed advising them that even a counsel with the ‘interim’ tag on their job title was more appropriate than a deputy county attorney being dispatched for the county’s most important legal matters.
At times the discussion revolved around whether Moylan was simply a shoo-in for the job, having worked alongside Hadeed for over a decade. Commissioner Kim Carney in particular spoke with an air of skepticism toward internal promotions versus a formal job search, while Commissioner Pam Richardson mentioned that the money spent on a hiring firm could be better directed toward initiatives such as coastal protection.
Commission Chair Andy Dance at once expressed exasperation at the direction the entire conversation had taken. He disputed notions that the system itself was flawed, that there was a disadvantage to having an applicant as the natural choice for interim attorney. It wasn’t the potential appointment of Moylan as interim that would dissuade candidates, Dance contested, but instead the mere presence of Moylan in the application process. He even apologized to Moylan directly.
Al Hadeed Speaks Up for Sean Moylan
No figure on Monday more passionately advocated for Moylan than Al Hadeed himself, who took a block of time to resist notions that the county was compulsively promoting from within. “When you see great work out of our legal department, believe me, if you think it’s all me, no it’s not,” Hadeed said. “With what I’ve done, why would I besmirch my legacy by having somebody not capable? I want these things to continue.”
The soon-to-be-retired County Attorney Al Hadeed. ⓒ AskFlagler
Hadeed’s speech lasted well over ten minutes. He stopped just short of beckoning the commissioners to hire Moylan. “You get to choose who you want to be your lawyer,” he continued. “You get to choose that, I’m not going to take that from you. But what I have done is brought up somebody that can be the County Attorney of Flagler County and do it very admirably.”
One motion from Commissioner Carney to appoint Moylan as the interim attorney but to ask her colleagues to select three applicants this week to interview failed without a second. Another, from Commissioner Leann Pennington, was made to table the item until the July 14th meeting, passed unanimously.
“I was very grateful [for what Al Hadeed said], very thankful,” Moylan said Tuesday about the night’s glowing endorsement. “I know that he feels that way about me, because I’ve been his right-hand man for eleven years. We’ve worked hand-in-glove on all the major issues that have faced the county for over a decade.”
