Top 100 Volusia County Stories of the year.
DAYTONA BEACH -- The Ocean Center box office moved to its new home at 101 N. Atlantic Ave. on Nov. 21, after months of temporary facilities set up during Ocean Center construction activities. The relocation was just in time for the NCAA college basketball's Glenn Wilkes Classic over the weekend.
EDGEWATER -- He was only on the job for 15 months, but City Manager Jon Williams was given a severance package of $140,311, when the City Commission voted to get rid of him Jan. 8
Councilwoman Debra Rogers was the lone vote against the termination because of the cost factor, which included paying Williams a one-year salary as well as accrued vacation, sick and personal time off.
Williams had been at odds with the city's unions and in the prior month received a vote of no confidence by the council members, who cited low employee morale.
DELTONA -- Volusia County Sheriff's investigators filed a criminal complaint affidavit June 12 with the State Attorney's Office charging 24-year-old Brandon Cardona with child neglect, leaving firearms within access of a minor and other felonies, two days after his 3-year-old son accidentally shot himself with a gun that resulted in a light grazing of the boy's chest.
DELTONA -- The Volusia County Sheriff's Office is investigating a report that a man forced his way into a Deltona home during the early morning hours of Oct. 24 and sexually
assaulted a 41-year-old woman.
Two children under the age of 10 also were in the home, but slept through the attack, Sheriff's spokesman Brandon Haught said.
PORT ORANGE -- Just days before Thanksgiving when a warning went out and through the first two weeks of December, at least 40 students at Spruce Creek High School came down with Chicken Pox.
There were at least 14 cases reported one day alone, with the vast majority of all the victims being ninth- and tenth-graders, school officials said.
NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican front-runner early on for the presidency, and the first of the big-name candidates, made a Jan. 15 pit-stop at Southeast Volusia Republican Club headquarters.
Giuliani, who dropped out well before the primary season got into full swing, told some 500 well-wishers the campaign in Florida was going to be "intense."
Giuliani asked the party faithful to pledge their support in advance of others preparing campaign visits: "How about voting for me?"
DEBARY -- Volusia County Sheriff’s investigators filed felony charges Nov. 20, against a 22-year-old man accused of masturbating several times while driving alongside a bus full of high school children. The incidents, which occurred over the past two weeks in DeBary, were brought to a halt when a concerned parent alerted the Sheriff’s Office after going on a morning stakeout in search of the suspect.
DELTONA -- A 19-year-old man was charged April 30, with attempted sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl with a knife near the Deltona Library.
A passerby frightened off the attacker after she screamed for help, a sheriff's spokesman said.
DELAND -- A gun-wielding man robbed a clothing store near DeLand the night of Dec. 3 and forced the store owner to strip off his pants and lock himself in a bathroom, the Volusia County Sheriff's Office reported.
DELTONA -- Volusia County narcotics agents found 416 marijuana plants in three homes in Deltona during raids July 9-10, with a combined street value of more than $900,000. Narcotics investigators conducted an investigation over the course of several months based on an initial citizen complaint and were able to obtain search warrants.
