Inside the story: Get insight into the reporter behind the story

Picture it.

You’re going on vacation and you find a great house near the water on Airbnb. It’s got four bedrooms, so you call some of your best buds to join you on the adventure. It’s gonna be lit. A week-long, non-stop party to get your mind off work, life in general and all the responsibilities that come with it.

Sound great?

Well, maybe for you. But for the homeowners next door, it can be a nightmare living next to the equivalent of a hotel with a revolving door of guests. Especially if these guests can't seem to respect or appreciate that the people living next door actually have lives and responsibilities.

Welcome to Cocoa Beach.

This week, reporters Dave Berman and Rick Neale bring you the story of the rapidly expanding number of vacation rental homes in the city. As they explain, the growing number of single-family homes coming off the market and going onto rental sites like Airbnb and Vrbo is causing issues in Brevard’s beachside tourist mecca and home of world famous surfing and sand.

I wanted to bring you a little insight into one of reporters behind the story.

Dave’s been a member of the FLORIDA TODAY team for 24 years, working in a variety of editing and reporting roles including business editor and an assistant local news editor, as well as a reporter focusing on Brevard County government and on North Brevard County.

Now he’s covering a range of topics, among them business, growth and development, local government and tourism, including Port Canaveral, the world's busiest cruise port.

Question: What's the most challenging part of your job?

Dave: It's a challenge to keep ahead of everything in my coverage areas, with a county this size, both in population and in geography, and with the scope of topics I cover.

I depend a lot on input from the sources I cover, from our readers in general, and from other staff members to assist in being the eyes and ears of the community, and to help craft coverage plans.

Q: What part of your job gives you satisfaction?

Dave: Breaking stories that no one else knows about and giving our readers the inside information about what's happening in the local government and business sectors.

Q: What's the weirdest story you've ever written?

Dave: It wasn't necessarily "the weirdest" and it wasn't necessarily the most fun being there. But a series of stories that was memorable was being deployed to the Brevard County Emergency Operations Center in Rockledge to cover what was going on there as hurricanes were approaching the Space Coast.

The center is undersized and not in the best shape, and has been known to have electrical and plumbing issues in the midst of a storm. The facility is so small that people stationed there sleep on the floor when they are off-duty, in the same room as others who are working their assigned shifts.

But, despite those obstacles, it is amazing to watch the coordinated efforts of representatives of the various government, public safety, health, public works and other entities stationed there respond to the storm, working to keep the public safe.

I'm sure everyone who has worked a storm there is looking forward to the opening of an expanded Emergency Operations Center that is under construction nearby and should be ready in time for the 2024 hurricane season.

Q: What's the biggest story you remember writing where you paused when you were writing it and thought "Wow, this is a really big deal"?

One of the biggest business stories I covered here was the merger of Brevard County's largest company, Harris Corp., with New York-based L3 Technologies to form what's now L3Harris Technologies.

The merger literally was "a big deal." But the bigger deal for the Space Coast was where the merged company's headquarters would be located. Reporting on that decision — with the headquarters going to Harris' headquarters city of Melbourne, and the company's operations also expanding in Palm Bay ― was a significant win for the local economy.

Q: What's your favorite part of living on the Space Coast?

On a personal level, my wife and I love living close to our family members, who are just a short car ride away, here in Florida, rather than a long plane flight.

As far as the community in general, after living much of my life in cold-weather cities, coming to the Space Coast provides relief from bundling up in a parka and shoveling snow. The first snow of the season was nice to see up north, but not the 20th snowstorm of the winter, sometimes coming as late as May.

The Space Coast's climate allows for morning or evening walks pretty much every day to see our nature, where you can run into everything from sandhill cranes to gators.

You can read Dave’s latest stories online now at floridatoday.com and you can reach Dave via email at dberman@floridatoday.com.

Rob Landers is a veteran multimedia journalist for the USA Today Network of Florida. Contact Landers at 321-242-3627 or rlanders@gannett.com. Instagram: @ByRobLanders Youtube: @florida_today

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Brevard reporter vacation rentals berman