PALM COAST – The Palm Coast State of the City address will be held this Thursday at the Palm Coast Community Center. The proceedings will begin at 5:30 pm, and attendance is open to the public with registration for a free ticket.
As with any year the annual address is held, the main portion will be a speech delivered by Mayor David Alfin. The speech typically highlights positive developments in Palm Coast over the last year, and places a spotlight on city staff and community members who’ve done something worthy of special recognition.
Also of note is that this may be Alfin’s final time delivering the State of the City address. Having been elected in summer 2021 to fill out the four-year term of a recently-resigned Milissa Holland, Alfin will be up for re-election later this year. Though Alfin has not yet filed, he’s stated in certain terms that he intends to. Currently he’s set to face four challengers: two-time mayoral hopeful Alan Lowe and first-time candidates Peter Johnson, Scott McDonald, and Mike Norris. If Alfin secures more than half the vote in August, he’ll win a second term. Otherwise, he’d need to place in the top two to advance to a two-candidate runoff in November.
If he does win re-election, Alfin has the potential to deliver more State of the City addresses than any other mayor in Palm Coast’s history. The city charter’s two-term limit for mayors and City Council members would not applied to Alfin until he begins his first four-year term; because he’s filling out a partial term now, it would not count as the first full one. That could put Alfin in office for eleven years if he’s re-elected twice, a potentially monumental continuity as the city undergoes meteoric expansion.
Alfin will deliver his 2024 State of the City address on Thursday, February 1st at 5:30 pm at the Palm Coast Community Center (305 Palm Coast Pkwy NE, Palm Coast, FL 32137). Free ticket registration is available through the City of Palm Coast’s website.
This will be his last. Instead of braking his arm patting himself on his back for the positive that happened in the city in the last year (most likely that would be all the home developments he and the council approved) How about addressing the improvements that he and the council approved to benefit to the residence of the city. Oh wait there isn’t any, that’s why.