Headline Surfer® photos /DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- This endorsement of Joyce Cusack for re-election in the at-large seat on the Volusia County Council will be short and sweet. Cusack is first class all the way in her dealings with the public and the issues at hand on the dais and in her every-day life.
And that's how it should be. Her challenger, Patricia Northey, has served the county with honor and distinction for many years, but in the last two years, she had come to the realization that her political career was coming to an end.
Northey had two choices: Retire with dignity and honor or do the unprecedented and challenge a colleague on the dais from her same party -- both are Democrats in the nonpartisan seats. Northey chose the latter.
But it didn't end there.
Like another colleague, Deb Denys, she was motivated to push for the so-called Waverly Media investigation in a desperate attempt to weaken her opponent.
In Northey's case, it was Cusack. In Denys' case, it was Justin Kennedy, her primary opponent from the 2012 campaign. They were among nearly two down candidates who accepted campaign support. Cusack and Kennedy accepted in-kind contributions from the bus bench company during the 2012 campaign.
The State Attorney's Office investigated and filed criminal charges against a former Waverly manager, Jim Brown. He pleaded no contest in a negotiated plea last year and has since past away.
Late last year, Councilman Doug Daniels of Ormond Beach, with the blessings of Northey, Denys and DeLand colleague Pat Patterson, bought into Daniels' idea of hiring his former law partner, Jonathan Kaney, Jr, to investigate. Cusack could smell a rat almost immediately, describing it as a "witch hunt."
Councilman Joshua Wagner, and County Chair Jason Davis agreed with Cusack, but are in the minority as Daniels, Northey, Denys and Patterson were dubbed "The Fab Four" by some media outlets and "The Gang of Four" by Headline Surfer® for their consistent "voting together" pattern on a whole host of issues.
The State Attorney's Office eventually concluded its investigation exonerating all the accused candidates, including Cusack and Kennedy.
Headline Surfer® photo / But the council in the interim authorized expenditures of $150,000, and the cost to the taxpayers could easily double as the situation lingers in court .
That's because Kaney's authority is being challenged by another of the former candidates, Ted Doran, who ran for county chair in 2012. Denys won re-election with her win in the Aug. 26 primary by surpassing the required threshold of 50 percent of the vote plus 1 over Kennedy and fellow candidate David Machuga.
But not before using Waverly as a means to make her rival look bad in the eyes of the voters with at least two attack mailers, including a PAC mailer sent out by Moretza "Mori" Hosseini-Kargar, an influential insider, owner of ICI Homes and a board member of International Speedway Corp.
Denys won, thanks in part to a huge disparity in campaign funding -- $63,270.44 (not including the Hosseini PAC mailer) to $7,415 for Kennedy and $4,450 for Machuga. Denys won with just over 51 percent of the vote to 35 percent for Kennedy and 13% for Machuga.
The second reason for Denys' win -- the abysmal voter turnout of 23 percent. She received only 17 percent support in a district where the lion's share of voters stayed home. Denys also had the backing and behind the scenes support of Republican insider Stanley Escudero, who has also has advised Northey in the campaign, even openly speaking favorably of her in front of his own GOP operatives and clubs.
And how fitting it is that like Denys, Northey sent out attack mailers that capitalized on the Waverly situation with distorted claims. Besides that, Northey's campaign website has been down for days in a dispute over payment, calling into question her veracity and transparency.
Unlike the Denys-Kennedy financial disparity, Cusack actually out raised her, even with a multitude of insider funding to the challenger from the likes of Hosseini and J. Hyatt Brown of Brown and Brown and another ISC board member.
Waverly, of course is not the only issue. Cusack is a supporter of beach driving while Northey is not. In fact, Nothey's campaign funding has been supllemwnted over the years by developers and insiders looking to make the Wotld's Most Famous Beach car-free to ebncourage more hotel vists and time shares with the added perception of it being a private beach.
A grasssroots petetion drive called "Let Volusia Vote" is being led by activists like Greg Gimbert, Elaine Baricle and Jeff Brower to get enoiugh signatures on a petition to bring the issue of beach driving to a public referendum and out of the hands of the County Council, which hass appeared eager to acqiesce to hoteliers.
And a couple dozen homeoeners in Osteen and Oak Hill, led by Cherl Manche and Geraldine Morgan Clinton, are fighting back against county intrusion for a rails to trails program that allowing it to take some of their frontage without compensation from an obscure law dating back motte than half a century. Northey and Denys were the two biggest supporters of this controversial land grab.
And further adding to claims of non transparency, neither Northey nor Denys showed up for public candidate debates back in June sponsored by the internet newspaper at Oak Hill City Hall.
Cusack, the former state representative has never lost an election. The intent newspaper expects she will win this election, too.
HeadlineSurfer.com enthusiastically supports Joyce Cusack for re-election to the at-large seat on the Volusia County Council.