Headline Surfer photo / Jason Davis and Carl Persis are shown here in a second public candidate debate sponsored and moderated by Headline Surfer in the Oak Hill City Commission Chambers on the eve of the 2012 November general elections. You can watch the debate below.
Davis, with strong Republican support in the non-partisan race, handily defeated Democrat Carl Persis, promising to cut taxes. But now, Republican leaders are feeling jilted by Davis who supports the Democratic majority that has endorsed County Manger Jim Dinneen's budget, despite a 10 percent increase in taxes.
DAYTONA BEACH -- In the 2012 elections, Republican Party elders like Stan Escudero and Tony Ledbetter worked their butts off to help get three Republicans elected to the Volusia County Council for perhaps the first time. And their true underdog candidate for county chair, Jason Davis, walloped the heavily-favored Democrat, Carl Persis, by a 20,000-plus vote plurality.
But with Thursday night's final public hearing and vote looming, Davis is expected to pull a Benedict Arnold on the Republican bosses, who have taken to wearing T-shirts and carrying home-made signs in pleading for cuts in spending, apparently to no avail.
Davis is not alone in the Pearl Harbor attack that came with the first public hearing a week ago Thursday. Fellow Republican Pat Patterson also turned his back on the GOP bosses who helped get him elected to his seat in DeLand.
And while Davis and Patterson are buying into Dinneen's claim that his proposal is bare bones, the Republicans aren't buying it. Neither is Headline Surfer.
The 24/7 internet newspaper's analysis of the budget shows it is potent enough to provide 2 percent raises to all county employees, with a whopping 42 of them, including Dinneen, already making six-figure salaries plus hefty benefits. In Dinneen's case, he's paid $213,792,getting deferred retirement and has a luxury SUV that he tows his private boat with. Apparently, it's a different one than the county-issued vehicle that was stolen as he was unhitching his boat in South Daytona and later found trashed with his bag of golf clubs missing.
The 2012 campaign was grueling and divisive at times, especially the county chair race that initrially had a third candidate in power attorney Ted Doran, but with Doran finishing lat in the primary and Davis romping on election night the holidays were jubilant.
But the honeymoon didn't last long.
Certainly not in Volusia County where party lines are blurred as elected candidates so often shift their priorities to taking care of their insider friends or in Davis' case falling for Dinneen's bureaucratic spin. And now less than 36 hours away from what could be an ugly gathering in the aptly named Frank T. Bruno County Council Chambers in DeLand, Davis of Edgewater and Patterson, are abouty to turn their backs on party loyalty.
The two have given every indication they are going to vote with three Democratic stalwarts -- at-large member Joyce Cusack of DeLand, Deltona member Pat Northey and Daytona Beach-area Council member Joshua Wagner, all Dinneen loyalists.
The two dissenters on the budget in the first public hearing, newcomers Deb Denys, the third Republican elected last November, and Democrat Doug Daniels of Ormond Beach, are expected to dissent, but regardlss, a 5-2 securement of Dinneen's budget is a fata compleat.
Daniels' expected "no" vote is not for the benefit of the Republicans, but rather his way of protesting what he sees as the lack of a long-term assessment on true spending needs or as some would describe as zero-based budgeting, where everything is on the table.
Denys has been adamant in her opposition to the increase, seeing it as great PR for her re-election campaign next year, even writing a guest column in the Daytona Beach News-Journal. But truth be told, in typical political double speak, Denys didn't offer a single spending cut in her write-up on the print newspaper's editorial page nor has she taken on Dinneen from the dais with any serious cuts.
She has nothing to lose by voting against Dinneen's budget and everything to gain by touting herself as a true fiscal conservative who kept her word with the voters. with the all-too-familar slogans.
Of course, Headline Surfer will remind the public next year come election season not only how candidates voted, but also what they did or didn't do from the dais to make needed spending cuts along the way.
Like Denys, Cusack and Northey are running again in 2014. Because Northey is term-limited, she's already taken out qualifying papers to try and take away Cusack's seat, showing loyalty means little even among the local Dems.
What the cards hold for the future is not yet clear. There's no denying that here in the present, the Republicans have an ugly mess on their hands.
And guess who is gloating from the sidelines?
Another Republican who actually sees himself as the head of county government. That, of course is New Smyrna Beach Mayor Adam Barringer, chairman of the taxpayer-funded Volusia Council of Governments, akin to management's version of a union.
If he can survive multiple Florida ethics investigations pending against him, Barringer could make a run for the "elected" county chair seat in 2016, against Davis, though party leaders on both sides see Wagner, now term-limited in his seat, as the odds-on favorite to do battle with Davis.
Barringer is more likely to muddy the waters and join Cusack and Northey in a three-way fight. That is if he can overcome multiple complaints being investigated by the Florida Commission on Ethics, a problem his city manager, Pam Brangaccio is sadlled with, as well.
Barringer knows he can't beat Denys, who ironically, has a big fundraiser tonight with some heavy-hitter political insiders like developer-attorney Glenn Storch, who has already given campaign money to a Deltona candidate running for Northey's term-limited seat.
Denys crushed Democrat Jim Hathaway, who gave up his municipal seat of 18 years in New Smyrna Beach to run for the council, openly supported by Barringer. And it was the mayor who hosted a private party at his SoNapa Grille wine-bar restaurant for Hathaway that led to the first ethics complaint against him. The city manager found herself lsssoed in an adjoining complaint for authorizing use of a city credit card to pay for 45 dinneers at 30 bucks a pop.
No matter how you slice it, the politics are nasty and come Thursday night, what will be perceived as the turncoat votes of two Republicans will be consummated.
Patterson is thick-skinned and stubborn. Though he's now a Republican, he was formerly a Democrat, who previously served on the council in addition to the statehouse with Cusack. Like Davis, he believes cuts in other budgets such as schools and the libraries translates into an actual tax savings, though that argument is something even the News-Journal has attached to Davis as a weakness while sidestepping Dinneen as the architect.
Davis, on the other hand, could be in for a long and difficult road, especially with the Daytona print paper, which has been critical of him from the onset of qualifying when he was relegated to the jump pge with a mug-style photo.
HeadlineSurfer.com Multimedia:
Headline Surfer videos produced by Multimedia Editor Serafina Frederick / Here is the second of two public candidate debates between eventual winner Jason Davis over Carl Persis. They were joined in an earlier debate by attorney Ted Doran, who finished third in the August primary and out of the running. These videos were initially published Sept. 5, 2012, on the 24/7 internet newspaper's YouTube channel.