Henry Frederick's blog

Sera and I are taking a break for a couple off days following our intense coverage of the 2010 primary elections, including 11th hour coverage of the recount for county judge, which ultimately held up Tuesday's win by Robert Sanders Jr. over incumbent Mary Jane Henderson. Our little beak doesn't mean we'll ignore breaking news. We'll be at full throttle before you know it with a wrap up of Primary 2010, an investigative report on beach driving and other news of interest.

With seven candidates vying to replace outgoing District 3 County Councilman Jack Hayman, Joie Alexander's finish at the top of the pack was not a surprise. The four who have already been eliminated, Ellen Darden of New Smyrna Beach, Bil Benedict of Samsula, Roger Gray of New Smyrna Beach and John D'Hondt of Port Orange, worked very hard and ran with class and distinction. With a weekend ballot recount of the second and third place finishers, George Trovato and Deborah Denys, respectively separated by less than one-half of 1 percent, Trovato appears to be in the driver's seat.

A short time after I posted my primary-day blog on Mary Jane Henderson onto Facebook, I received a comment there from her husband, Clay: "You don't get it Henry. Mary Jane is well liked and has made the difference in the lives of so many people."

Mary Jane Henderson stood at the front of Central Baptist Church in Daytona on Sunday afternoon, of all days, and waxed poetic about how wonderful her 19 years-year career on the bench has been,  laughing off her own daily tardiness as a mirror-image of her Alabama country doctor father and how, and most of all,  loving a husband she has in Clay Henderson. Mercifully for those really in the know, her time at the "pulpit" was mercifully limited to three minutes.

"Patience" is the operative word today as Sera and I create, process and post a huge amount of election stories, profiles, candidate notebooks, videos and yes, endorsements. The website hits have been tremendous in the last 24 hours, so much so, that we are praying that we don't crash. To that end, our Utah-based webmaster, Jed Brown, is on the clock through tomorrow night. We also have three 11th-hour ads to put up.

Peter Mallory and I were going over our choices for primary endorsements at breakfast Thursday when it dawned on me that the winner of the Republican race between State Rep. Dorothy Hukill and challenger Teresa Valdes, if you can even call Valdes competition, won't have a Democratic challenger in November. Barring a miracle for Valdes, the incumbent Hukill will sail through November's general election with an obscure write-in candidate waiting to be knocked out.

A shining moment occurred during Tuesday night's overdrawn dis cussion on the Angler's Club lease. And that was the announcement of Althea Phillord as the city's new finance director and first African-American department head in the history of City Hall.
That alone puts in perspective what is the biggest artificial issue of New Smyrna Beach city politics over the last couple of years: Without a doubt, the Anglers Club lease. This is a shining example of government at its worst and the amount of money and time spent on it is an absolute disgrace.

As far as NSBNEWS.net is concerned it's no coincidence that New Smyrna Beach leads the way countywide with early voting midway through the process with the Aug. 24 primary. We feel confident that our mission of providing intense daily campaign coverage is having a positive impact in that regard. Many of the candidates in races that affect Southeast Volusia recognize this, which explains why NSBNEWS.net has more political advertising than any other media outlet in Volusia County.

Well, it's no surprise here that after four days of Early Voting, New Smyrna Beach leads the way countywide. We have extensive and intense coverage planned on the key races, the issuers, the candidates and voter sentiment, including profile stories, video interviews, candidate political notebooks and an array of advertising from the candidates themselves where you can click on their ads and check out their websites directly from NSB News. No other media outlet has as much daily interaction. We'll also have endorsements in advance of the Aug. 24 primary.

Sera and I were on a week-long vacation in Southern New England when I received a call about the small tornado strike on New Smyrna Beach. Thanks to the Internet and our NSBNEWS.net, we were able to deliver the news promptly to folks back home in Southeast Volusia and around the world for that matter, with two hours to spare before the Daytona Beach News-Journal finally got around to posting their own story on their website and rehash the next morning in print. And as is typical on a daily basis, Google also carried our breaking coverage on its news websites.