Archive

DEBARY -- The Ladies Networking Luncheon is scheduled 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, April 26, at the DeBary Golf & Country Club, 300 Plantation Club Drive.

The cost for the buffet-style-luncheon is $15 per person. To RSVP go to WestVolusiaRegionalChamber.org and for more information, please call Linda Butler at 386-532-1287.

Photo for Headline Surfer / This history behind this and other Port Orange historic structures is explained in a city program, 1 p.m. Friday at the City Adult Center Annex, 3738 Halifax Drive.

PORT ORANGE -- The community is invited to attend the 1 p.m. Friday "Port Orange History Lecture: Then and Now," featuring a photo tour of historic structures and landmarks from Port Orange’s past and what has replaced them today.

ORMOND BEACH -- If you have any questions about municipal issues in Ormond Beach, please call City Manager Joyce Shanahan at 386-676-3200.

By Jason Davis

DAYTONA BEACH -- Here we are, 100 days into the new year, and what a year it has been.

I have learned the way our county council meetings run and have had to understand the individual personalities of our council while we have had to appoint several board members with more to come.

Sun Rail has been exposed as not being funded or having a plan in place. CRA rules are being re-written and need to be finalized and our county budget is constantly being reviewed under a microscope. We have reduced some spending, with much more needed to come. 

At left is a snapshot of the top-ranked news item in the Google News Directories for Daytona Beach at mid-morning Thursday.

DAYTONA BEACH -- A blog written exclusively for Headline Surfer by Volusia County Chair Jason Davis on his first 100 days in office is tops in the Google News Directories for Daytona Beach in the 10 o'clock hour.

Headline Surfer photos by Henry Frederick / Bob Tolley, shown at left at a New Smyrna Beach City Commission meeting, is a critic of Mayor Adam Barringer,  shown below.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- Citizen watchdog Bob Tolley has filed a new round of ethics complaints with the state against Mayor Adam Barringer for his verbal tirade on a New Smyrna Beach cop who wouldn't let him cut through a barricaded side street before the city's Christmas parade.

To date, Tolley has filed four separate ethics complaints against city officials, beginning with the municipality's "private" retirement party back in November for former City Commissioner Jim Hathaway with up-front costs paid for with a city credit card. The retirement dinner was held at Barringer's beachside wine restaurant, SoNapa Grille.

But it's the treatment of the cop, Ralph Hunnefeld, a combat-tested veteran of the Iraq War, whom the mayor called a "pr-ck" that has Tolley, himself a Vietnam vet, up in arms.

And in a related story, New Smyrna Beach police have come under criticism for a series of traffic-related warnings the mayor has received with some questioning whether he is being given preferential treatment because of his status as the city's top elected official. Prior to becoming mayor in 2009, Barringer received several traffic-related citations, but only warnings since.

Headline Surfer photos by Henry Frederick / A woman dances while raising a beer in front of her pre-teen daughter during a New Year's Eve celebration on Main Street in Daytona Beach. CRA taxpayer money supported the bash with the dropping of a lighted beach ball.

DAYTONA BEACH -- With Daytona Beach's continual emphasis on economic development and dealing with the issue of blight, how does the city justify its use of CRA taxpayer-supported dollars for massive public drinking parties like the New Year's Eve bash held on Main Street?

HOLLY HILL -- It's party-hearty tonight at the Second Street Farmers Market where a rum festival has been underwritten by $1,400 in CRA taxpayer monies.

The "Real McCoy Rum Festival runs from 4 to 8 p.m., featuring rum and seafood vendors, reggae and calypso entertainment. The guest attraction is the "Pepper Pots" Steel drum band.

"The CRA funding was for a mailing to let the citizens know we're having this rum event," City Manager Jim McCroskey said earlier this afternoon.

Limo service worker may have had financial issues

Photo for Headline Surfer / Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of 36-year-old James Sheaffer of Deltona shown here at left, is asked to call the Sheriff's Office at 386-860-7030.

DELTONA -- The Volusia County Sheriff's Office is asking for the public's help in finding a Deltona man who went missing under suspicious circumstances April 2 and hasn't been seen since.

James Sheaffer, 36, who works for a limousine service, was last seen at the business getting into an unknown man's vehicle, Sheriff's spokesman Brandon Haught told Headline Surfer this afternoon.

"The men then drove away in a black passenger car, leaving Sheaffer's vehicle behind," the sheriff's spokesman said. "He did not return to work for his next assignment and his live-in girlfriend and family members haven't heard from him.

Facebook Fanpage photo / Nicole K. Nagrani, a 21-year-old Daytona Beach resident and Stetson University student, behind the wheel of a Porsche SUV, was not injured in an early Thursday morning fatality that claimed the life of an elderly Port Orange woman struck while trying to cross Ridgewood Avenue at White Street, as shown in this locator map.

PORT ORANGE -- The paths of two women who didn't know each other crossed this morning in a tragic accident that left the 78-year-old pedestrian dead in the roadway on Ridgewood Avenue and the 21-year-old behind the wheel of a Porsche SUV shaken up emotionally, but physically uninjured.

Here is a synopsis of what happened in the 9:10 a.m. Thursday fatality as described by Port Orange Asstistant Chief of Police Wayne Miller: Police and fire department personnel responded to the intersection of White Street and Ridgewood Avenue regarding a vehicle versus pedestrian accident. The pedestrian was pronounced deceased at the scene. No other injuries were reported.