Residents object to Branquinho-Danko spat

Palm Coast Observer
News

Palm Coast residents appealed to the City Council during a Dec. 1 council meeting to enforce rules of civility against Councilman Eddie Branquinho, who’d instigated a vulgar argument at the dais with newly seated Councilman Ed Danko at a council meeting two weeks before.

Branquinho had objected to Danko’s campaign comments about the city being “corrupt,” and had demanded a personal apology, saying that Danko had implicitly implicated Branquinho in his statements.

Branquinho said that if he didn’t get an apology, he’d refer to Danko as “Councilman Corrupt.”

Danko had replied that he hadn’t called Branquinho corrupt and would not apologize for something he hadn’t done, and said that if Branquinho called him “Councilman Corrupt,” he’d call Branquinho “Councilman Full of Crap.”

Neither man called the other names at the Dec. 1 meeting. But the seating at the dais, where Danko and Branquinho had initially been seated next to each other, had been changed, placing the two men on opposite sides of the room.

Neither responded to the residents’ comments or spoke of the dispute.

“I’m gravely concerned if this is your true personality that you displayed at the swearing in, Councilman Branquinho,” a P-Section resident said at the meeting. “I felt like you had planned to intimidate. The behavior has many concerned if you’re fit for the position. I noticed that you never apologized for the tirade against Councilman Ed Danko. Sadly, you actually boasted about it. … That set a negative tone, and we have our eyes on you now.”

Another resident asked Holland to have Branquinho removed from the room if he has another outburst.

“I’m a little dismayed, Mayor Holland, at the way that he behaved last week,” she said. She noted that Branquinho, in a recent comment to the press, had used vulgar language when speaking about Danko.

“He has used language that is unbecoming to his chair,” she said. “This is not the language we would expect from a professional person. … It’s OK to disagree, but it’s not alright to bully someone.”