DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — A billboard is creating a controversy in Daytona Beach. It's not the content of the Halifax Medical Center advertisement, it's the face on it of Mayor Glen Richey. Some are questioning whether the Mayor should be endorsing one hospital over the others in the city.
It is a rotating billboard on the city's busiest street. It's one of a series of billboards featuring athletes and business leaders, but Mayor Glen Ritchey is an elected official publicly promoting one local business over another.
In a four and a half minute video online, and in billboard, print and TV ads around the community, Mayor Glen Ritchey and his wife Connie throw their full support behind Daytona's Halifax Health.
"I choose Halifax Health because of the physicians they have employed here," Mayor Ritchey said in an ad.
Halifax Health is not the only facility that provides hospital care in the city, though. Florida Hospital opened a 14-story facility last year on the city's north side.
When asked about the Mayor's support of Halifax, the Florida Hospital president said, "We're very interested in people understanding it's a false choice to say you have to go with one hospital or another."
"It's ideal, in a community setting, to be a friend of both hospitals," Florida Hospital President Darryl Tol said.
Ritchey does sit on the Halifax board of directors, but the video ad identifies him as Mayor and he talks about his move into politics.
"I decided to run at the urging of the business community and several of the residents," Ritchey said in the ad.
Ritchey also uses the video ad to talk about his car businesses that are prominent in the southeast.
"Wound up owning that dealership that I first started working at and since then I've owned 13 more," he said in a video ad.
The ads have been reported as costing Halifax, a tax-supported hospital, $20,000 to produce and that Ritchey and others were not paid, but Halifax would not confirm that Friday.
Ritchey didn't return WFTV's calls for comment or messages left at City Hall. His term as mayor is up in 2011.
WFTV
