Back in the saddle again: With mission of bringing corrupt politicians & insiders into Sunshine

Surfers love the World's Most Famous Beach in Daytona / Headline SurferDaytona International Speedway, home of the Daytona 500 / Headline Surfer®Main display photo by Headline Surfer® / inset photo for the internet newspaper /
Volusia County is home to the World's Most Famous Beach® and the Daytona 500, yet the county is the third highest taxed of the Sunshine State's 67 counties and third lowest from the bottom in terms of revenues generated from those taxes. Regardless, there is plenty of wheeling and dealing among the elite political and business insiders with government.
 

DAYTONA BEACH -- For some reason, I feel energized on this Thursday morning after crossing the St. Johns Bridge from Sanford into Volusia County. Perhaps it's the warm Florida sun. After all, one of things we Floridians love is the sunshine.

I'll be the first to admit: Things have been kind of gloomy in the last few months, but I see a brighter future for myself, my family and ultimately, the public we serve through our "new media" outlet, HeadlineSurfer.com. The technical issues that befell us the entire week with a hacker in our email have been fixed and we're back online around the clock.

With that said, Let me be perfectly clear: We will do our due diligence to push for transparency in government at all levels, and nowhere is that needed more than here in Volusia County -- home to the World's Most Famous Beach® and the Daytona 500 -- clearly one of the most corrupt of the Sunshine' State's 67 counties.

And here's the rub: One would think that Volusia County, with the Atlantic coastline and the scenic St. Johns River on its western border with Seminole County, would be one of the most affordable, considering the heavy tourism draw, or so we are constantly told. But in reality, Volusia County is the third highest of Florida's 67 counties. And yet, the revenue produced from the tax base is the third from the bottom among the counties.

Volusia County's two biggest employers are Wal-Mart and Publix. That speaks volumes as to the lack of industry and decent-paying jobs, even being within 90 minutes of Jacksonville and an hour from Orlando.

But Volusia County is a boom to political and business insiders who comprise an intricate network with a firm hold on the multiple taxing districts.

And herein, Volusia County stands out as the only one in the entire state with more than one taxpayer-supported indigent care hospital district and more than one advertising authority (tourism). Volusia County actually has three of each.

Florida has earned a national reputation over the last couple of decades as a leader in government corruption. But when that corruption crosses from politics-as-usual to a murkier grey area where criminality comes into play, then it's the job of the news media to speak up.

Notice earlier, I referenced our medium as "new media." That's because Headline Surfer® represents 21st-century journalism, though still raw in a new millennium, especially when it comes to sustaining and generating ad revenue. Still, our digital platform  is the future of journalism.

The news media -- principally print newspapers -- continue to have a distinct advantage in terms of established readership and marketing, though both are beginning to shrbnk.

In Volusia County, the Daytona Beach News-Journal, a certifiable 100,000-circulation metro at the turn of the 21st century, is lucky to have a third of that readership, even if the circulation figures are inflated.

And despite our best intentions with our April 7, 2008, launch, first as NSBNews.net, and then HeadlineSurfer.com in 2012, when we got our registered trademark for Headline Surfer®, we weren'exactly welcomed by the insiders. Nor by governments in Volusia (county and municipal) and with good reason. That has changed for the worse.

The job of holding government accountable is not the mantra of the chamber-friendly ownership of the News-Journal, under Halifax Media Group, which purchased the former metro off the scrap heap of a federal lawsuit for $20 million four years ago, when the paper was assessed at more than 10 times that figure.

This came as a result of the Davidson Family, the former owners, getting sued a decade ago by their minority partner, Cox Enterprises of Atlanta, for spending $13 million on naming rights for the $27 million lively arts center chaired by then-Daytona Beach Mayor Glenn Ritchey. It was the pre-cursor to what would become the "News-Journal Center."

Ritchey, so often the front man for the insiders, serves on the indigent care board of Halifax Health System and is chairman of the taxing district created for "One Daytona," the supposed-$800 million retail/condo complex across from the Speedway, where the grandstands are undergoing a $400 million upgrade, dubbed "Daytona Rising."

The scandal of the News-Journal Center transitioned to the American Music Festival fiasco. These gave way to the then-State Attorney John Tanner grand jury scandal with Special prosecutor Harry Shorstein. Then came the hospital merger do-over between the private Adventists and the taxpayer-supported indigent care Southeast Volusia Hospital Authority (Bert Fish Medical Center in New Smyrna Beach). 

Then came 2012 SVAA scandal involving the firing of Nicole Carni, who was arrested earlier this year. And then came the county Waverly investigation. And earlier this year, came the great giveaway of $150 million-plus in taxpayer money for the Speedway. 

Tonight is the second and final reading of the county budget. I was going to push for "inclusion" in advertising, but it has been made so abundantly clear that the senior administration and a majority of the electeds like the quid pro quo that comes with the media relationships in place -- principally Halifax Media's News-Journal and Southern Stone's WNDB Radio. And considering I'd be biting the hand that feeds if our internet newspaper were receiving governmemnt revenue, it's just not worth it. At the end of the day, the award-winning journalism speaks for itself. It always does. The awards are a testament to that.