The written record of the city commission’s Oct. 12 meeting reaches the board Monday, on the consent agenda, as a draft waiting for approval. Two of the night’s decisions are in it without a vote.

This paper could not report that meeting from a city record in October, because no city record of its votes existed anywhere. The release the city posted carried no roll, and the account of the carriage vote ran here attributed to the St. Johns Citizen. The draft minutes are the city’s own version, four weeks later, arriving for approval on Monday’s consent agenda, and they are worth reading closely.

The carriage franchises

Most of the carriage item is recorded in full, roll by roll. Eight applications came in, three were denied on background checks, and the applicants appealed. Two appeals were granted, each 4/1, with Vice Mayor Barbara Blonder the nay both times. One denial stood, and the staff summary counts it plainly: 8 applications, 1 denial upheld, 7 possible franchise agreements, 10 medallions, one per applicant and the remaining three by lottery.

The record of that third appeal argues with itself. The motion as drafted reads “UPHOLD the appeal,” and the draft marks it approved unanimously, two paragraphs after a discussion concluding the applicant was ineligible. Three items later the summary says one denial was upheld. A reader gets to pick which sentence the board meant, and a minute book is not supposed to offer the choice.

Then the award itself. Commissioner Jon DePreter moved to award the seven applicants one medallion each, send the last three to a lottery, and limit the agreements to three years. An amendment, on cost evaluations and the city manager’s discretion over idle franchises, carried 3/2: DePreter, Mayor Nancy Sikes-Kline and Commissioner Cynthia Garris for, Commissioners Jim Springfield and Blonder against.

The vote on the award motion itself is not in the draft. The amendment’s roll is the only 3/2. The Citizen reported the franchises carried 3 to 2, and this paper printed that with the attribution on it. The city’s own record, as drafted, stops one motion short of saying so.

That is the gap.

The interim city manager

Item 13.A is the appointment of Reuben Franklin, the assistant city manager, as the interim manager of the city. The draft records that one person applied, that the board discussed it, and then prints the heading MOTION. Nothing follows it. No mover. No second. No roll. No words moved. The next entry is the following agenda item, in which a commissioner congratulates Franklin on being appointed.

The term has the same problem it had in October, with a new date in it. The memorandum on the dais that night asked for a term running from Dec. 17, 2026 to June 17, 2027. The city’s release gave Dec. 17 twice and no end. The draft bond paperwork in Monday’s packet now prints a third version: Birchim is expected to retire Dec. 15, and Franklin becomes interim city manager starting Dec. 16, “until such time as a new City Manager is selected by the City Commission.” No end date, and a start one day earlier than the item the board acted on.

What the draft does settle

Plenty. The park at 865 Fish Island Road is named Stone Cutters Creek Park, by unanimous voice vote. Resolution 2026-36, letting Flagler College issue up to $18,000,000 in refunding bonds, carried with four ayes and Blonder recused as a college employee. Ordinance 2026-23, which raises the parking fine from thirty-five to one hundred dollars in an expanded downtown and Davis Shores boundary, passed first reading Oct. 12 with Garris not present, and the Oct. 26 draft in the same packet records it passing second reading unanimously. A commissioner credited the Florida Inland Navigation District representative with helping the city land $425,000 in grant funds.

A draft is a draft. The commission can amend the minutes Monday before it approves them, and the two blanks are exactly the kind of thing an amendment fixes.

The record is the only part of a meeting the public gets to keep.

Monday the board is asked to keep this one.