NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. -- It comes as no surprise that ex-Sheriff Ben Johnson was endorsed by the Board of Realtors in his run for at the at-large seat on the Volusia County Council. Same thing with endorsing Deb Denys for re-election to her District 3 County Council seat representing New Smyrna Beach, Edgewater, and Oak Hill.
And right there in the same company is Chase Herbig, one of six first-time candidates for mayor of New Smyrna Beach with no incumbent. And so it was Herbig tabbed Friday by the New Smyrna Beach Board of Realtors as the organization's 2018 endorsement recommended to the voters as the successor to retiring Mayor Jim Hathaway, a second-generation native son whose late father also was mayor of the city by the sea in the 1970s.