By HENRY FREDERICK / Headline Surfer
NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. -- With Deb Denys running for county chair, the district 3 seat is up for grabs in Tuesday's primary election among three candidates in what can be construed as good goop-bad cop among two of the three.
Danny Robins, a former Daytona Beach cop, is the candidate with the most upside to serve as the district 3 representative on the Volusia County Council.
In our book, Robins, 35, the gather of a young son and an avid fisherman, is the good cop, proverbially speaking.
The second candidate is Gary Conroy, an Edgewater city councilman and retired Edgewater cop.
In our book, Conroy is the bad cop, proverbially speaking.
The third candidate is John D’Hondt, 65, of Samsula, a substitute teacher who raises chickens. D'Hondt actually ran for the District 3 seat 10 years ago finishing dead last among seven candidates in the Aug. 24, 2010 primary with a mere 383 votes or 2.38 percent of the total.
Joie Alexander finished first in the primary with 4,058 votes or 25.32 percent of the total. Then-Former Deltona city attorney who was living in Port Orange, was second with 2,817 votes or 17.57 percent. Third and out of the running was Deb Denys of New Smyrna Beach with 2,741 votes or 17.1 percent. Fourth was Ellen Darden of Edgewater with 2,590 votes or 16.16 percent. Bill Benedict of New Smyrna Beach was fifth with 2,316 votes or 13.45 percent. Roger Gray of New Smyrna Beach was sixth with 1,126 votes or 7.02 percent.
In the general election run-off, Alexander with 17,492 votes or 56.03 percent of the overall vote to his 13,728 votes or 43.97 percent, easily defeated Trovato for her second term on the council. Denys would run again in 2012 and win the district 3 seat.
D'Hont back then was living in Edgewater, going through a divorce while still managing a bar they owned together.
Fast forward to the 2020 elections and D’Hondt's neither a good cop nor a bad cop in our book, proverbially speaking. He's just the third candidate with no shot at winning. It remains to be seen whether he can top the 383 votes he got a decade ago.
So the focus here is on the two main candidates -- Robins and Conroy.
So why is Conroy the bad cop? Well, he's shown himself to be a bully on the municipal dais in Edgewater, especially in October of 2013, when he led a surprise 3-2 vote to fire longtime City Manager Tracy Barlow during a special city council meeting that was called for an entirely different matter. The edict to dump the city manager ended up costing Edgewater more than $100,000 in severance.
Conroy was a 22-year cop with the city.
"I'm still standing and my enemies - Barlow, Ignasiak & Arcieri - are gone,'" Conroy said several weeks later referring to the city manager, Mike Ignasiak, the mayor who lost in the subsequent election and Dave Arcieri, who was forced out as well.
All of this sets up an interesting showdown since Conroy is a business agent for the Teamster's union, which represents several cop shops in Central Florida.
Robins was with the Daytona Beach police force for none years before a back injury in 2014 forced him to abruptly retire. Robins owns Danny’s Dumpsters, a dumpster rental service in Port Orange, and he owns Halifax Supply, where he's a licensed firearms dealer.
Robins, whose campaign motto is "service – integrity – accountability" is endorsed by Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood.
Photo for Headline Surfer / Daniel Robins, a former Daytona Beach cop and 2020 candidate for the District 3 seat on the Volusia County Coiuncil, is shown with Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood, who has endorsed him. Chitwood was police chief in Daytona when Robins was a cop.
Robins, whose campaign motto is "service – integrity – accountability" is endorsed by Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood.
And Daniel Robins is endorsed by Headline Surfer for the district 3 county council seat in today's primary.
Henry Frederick is publisher of Headline Surfer, the award-winning 24/7 internet news outlet launched 12 years ago that serves greater Daytona Beach, Sanford & Orlando, Florida via HeadlineSurfer.com. Frederick has amassed more than a hundred journalism industry awards in print & online -- more than all other members of the working press combined in Central Florida since the mid-1990s. He earned his Master of Arts in New Media Journalism with academic honors from Full Sail University in 2019. Having witnessed the execution of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Florida's death chamber and other high profile cases, Frederick has appeared on national crime documentary programs on Discovery ID and Reelz for his investigative reporting and cops & courts breaking news stories.