Headline Surfer display photos / The multimedia presentation features endorsed New Smyrna Beach mayoral candidate Chase Herbig and his family. 
By HENRY FREDERICKNEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. -- With his proven business acumen, devotion to family and true appreciation of sun, sea, and sand, Chase Herbig is the clear-cut choice for mayor in preserving the charm of this coastal paradise.
INew Smyrna Beach residents have a choice between Herbig and four others in today's primary to succeed Jim Hathaway as mayor of this city of 26,470 residents.
Should one of those candidates garner 50 percent of the votes plus one more, that candidate will be the outright winner. But if no candidate reaches that threshold, then the top two vote-getters in the primary will square off in the general election on Nov. 6.
Headline Surfer puts the full strength of its award-winning 24/7 internet news coverage in backing Herbig for mayor without reservation. So much so that this digital medium believes the city's voters should support the one candidate who brings the total package; who in fact, has the vision and foresight that overrides those of the others. Herbig is the difference maker, period, end of story.
Headline Surfer puts the full strength of its award-winning 24/7 internet news coverage in backing Herbig for mayor without reservation. So much so that this digital medium believes the city's voters should support the one candidate who brings the total package; who in fact, has the vision and foresight that overrides those of the others. Herbig is the difference maker, period, end of story.
While the chatter of late has been to curb the insatiable appetite of the developers and far too many some politicians in the past who have allowed them to carve up and subdivide parcel after parcel to the point where the beachside can' no longer absorb the micro-density shoehorning of the last half-decade. But Herbig is the only one with even a hint of municipal experience, serving on the city's economic development board.
Hathaway, a longtime city commissioner and current two-term mayor, whose father, was also the mayor, saw this coming nearly a decade ago when he opposed the Hampton Inn on Flagler Avenue. More recent development on the beach and the buildup of the State Road 44 business corridor in the interim have created a firestorm of anti-growth activist groups.
And here is a telling point as to Headline Sur5fer's unequivocal support of Herberg's campaign for mayor.
“We’ve been found," Herbig said at a recent municipal candidate forum. "We have Orlando coming over, DeLand, DeBary and everyone else wants to come to our beach — their beach. ... One of the things that I think we are missing is control. ... I think controlling traffic, we’re not doing a good job of it.”
The traffic, the congestion that is symptomatic of a popular beach getaway that has been overwhelmed by out-of-control development.
"It's crazy," Herberg told Headline Surfer in an interview earlier this week, reiterating what he stressed in the forum.
Headline Surfer Infographic / 
