She understands every portion of what we do here. I agree with him that Heidi has a long standing record of accomplishment here. He developed a great admiration for the abilities of Heidi Petito. And the closer we got, the more that Jorge believed that he was correctly situated as a number two. And during that transition period, we have discussed with core leadership and we discussed with Heidi Petito and Jorge Salinas, and we believe that Jorge was really qualified to take over this on an interim basis. “We have two people that are ready, and could take over any organization this size tomorrow and do a great job,” Cameron said this evening. Petito has no four-year college degree, but then neither did Cameron, a University of South Carolina drop-out who nevertheless let people refer to him as “professor Cameron.” The commission recognized Cameron’s two-and-a-half-year service as interim with a farewell proclamation earlier in the meeting, fawning even for a commission with hands impressively callused from back-patting. Yet she had not been among the 16 applicants for the interim post two and a half years ago, when Cameron was. Her husband, Don Petito, was the long-time county fire chief edged out of his job last year in an arrangement that would ease Heidi Petito’s way up in the administration. She takes the top job with none of Coffey’s insecurities and none of Cameron’s ego, and where both men could be truculent or petty in their antagonisms, Petito has built a reputation as a less abrasive, more collegial director: if sarcasm was a Coffey specialty and pomposity a Cameron one, Petito is the more recognizable Everywoman, unaffected and tempered. She’d worked as a civilian in police administrations previously.
She had former Administrator Craig Coffey’s trust too, rising to facilities director the year of his arrival in 2007 after she’d been a public works accountant. Palm Coast and Bunnell are still waiting. While Salinas was chosen with the understanding, between outgoing Administrator Jerry Cameron and the commission, that he could be the next administrator, today’s appointment was a nod toward the county’s need for a degree of continuity and institutional history as it navigates the budget process, which can be arcane and challenging to someone who hasn’t gone through it year after year, as Petito has.Ī little history, too: Petito is the first woman to lead the county administration in a county where only the school board and Flagler Beach have previously had women as top executives. Petito, the county’s long-time facilities director and its co-chief of staff since January, has also been considered by the administration and the commission a potential administrator, pre-dating Salinas.
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