DAYTONA BEACH As the nation celebrates Black history this month, many people driving through the urban core Midtown neighborhood probably don t realize they re motoring past important city history.
A few blocks south of Orange Avenue, there s the 125-year-old boyhood home of Howard Thurman, a mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr. and a friend of Mahatma Gandhi.
The Campbell Hotel, one of the only places a Black visitor could stay in Daytona Beach until the mid-1960s, still stands on Mary McLeod Bethune Boulevard. The hotel was also the home of The Stardust night club, where musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie played.
DAYTONA BEACH Almost one year ago, City Manager Jim Chisholm alerted city commissioners that he intended to retire in March 2021.
Now it looks like Chisholm will be sticking around at least until June 1 since commissioners are behind schedule in their process to choose a successor.
City Commissioner Stacy Cantu blames the delay on the private consulting firm the city hired last fall to search for city manager candidates. After unleashing a scathing rebuke of Slavin Management Consultants during Wednesday night s City Commission meeting, Cantu called for the firm s immediate termination. They did not meet any deadlines, Cantu said during the meeting. (Slavin) has not met any requirements on this contract. Nothing.
The Ormond Beach City Commission is considering using its emergency alert system to inform residents of a uniquely urgent matter: A School Board discussion about the consolidation of Osceola and Ortona elementary schools.
But the meeting where those talks were supposed to take place was canceled and, at the time of publication, has not been rescheduled.
It s the latest news in more than a year s worth of discussion on the topic, and shows an escalation in the cities bids to house a brand new school.
The Volusia County school district has long been planning to consolidate the schools, and previously voted to build the brand new school on the Ortona Elementary campus in Daytona Beach. But at a January workshop, board members discussed the possibility of changing that plan, in favor of building the new school on the Osceola Elementary campus in Ormond Beach.
DAYTONA BEACH Nearly a year after Mayor Derrick Henry virtually shut down the last day and a half of Bike Week to curb the spread of COVID-19, city commissioners have agreed to let this year s biker party run its usual 10-day course with all of its carnival-like trappings.
Bands will belt out their tunes from parking lot stages, the scantily clad beer tub girls will keep bikers well-hydrated, and the vendors turkey legs and trinkets will flow.
But Bike Week 2021 will come with some new rules and restrictions that will remind the thousands of two-wheeled visitors that the COVID-19 pandemic isn t done wreaking its havoc.