Al Everson

A big-name chain store is closing its doors in Orange City. Signs alert passers-by that Office Depot, located at 1138 Saxon Blvd., is selling its office-supply merchandise at pre-closing discount prices.

Nine years after the Daytona Beach-based Halifax Health opened a freestanding emergency department in Deltona, and six years after the full-fledged hospital opened its doors, the hospital has expanded to 90 patient beds and vowed to bring more advanced medical offerings and options to West Volusia and beyond. Now allied with the University of Florida’s Shands Hospital, Halifax Health UF […]

The largest city in Volusia County also has the standout status of being a town whose government meetings seem, at times, like the feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. Voices and passions rise occasionally, and civility may seem to be in short supply. The latest dustup between Commissioner Dori Howington and City Manager Dale “Doc” Dougherty took place toward […]

Almost 2 square miles of virtually unspoiled Old Florida fronting on the St. Johns River in the heart of Volusia County is poised to pass into public ownership. The County Council May 5 wasted no time in approving the purchase of 1,299 acres known as the River Bend Ranch, near Osteen. The decision to buy the tract was unanimous. The […]

Will Deltona soon have yet another Amazon fulfillment center? Word of a possible Amazon receiving and shipping facility came May 4, when the City Commission learned there is talk about a third high-cube warehouse that may be developed in or close to the I-4 Logistics Park along North Normandy Boulevard. So far, nothing in writing has been submitted to city

Thanks to federal assistance, a road that connects Deltona’s east and west sides will be safeguarded against future flooding, but the fix will not be immediate. “We were awarded a grant,” Deltona Deputy Public Works Director Phyllis Wallace said, referring to the $881,522 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The federal funds flowed through the Florida Division of Emergency […]

In the run-up to Memorial Day, and with the desire to be on the road again in the spring and summer, American Legionnaires from around the Sunshine State known as Post Riders banded together to call attention to a threat to the lives and well-being of their comrades-in-arms. The Post Riders revved up their engines April 24 and traveled to […]

April 24 was a special day in Deltona. By proclamation and custom, the fourth Friday of April is Arbor Day in Deltona, and the city celebrates by giving free trees to people who live there. On that day each year, the city invites in-city residents to pick up trees and promise to plant them and help green up and spruce […]

A well-known DeLand-based private agency for people in dire need of help is planning to ask Volusia County for some federal funds for its humanitarian work to stock up its food supply. “We’re applying for $81,000,” Savannah Jane Griffin, The Neighborhood Center of West Volusia’s chief executive officer said, adding the funds, if awarded, will help meet the food pantry’s […]

Call them the wordy half dozen. When they go to the polls Nov. 3 — or sooner, as in early voting — or when they mark an absentee ballot, the voters will see and decide on six propositions to change Volusia County’s 55-year-old home-rule charter. Five of those would-be changes in the charter were reported out of the 2025-26 Charter […]