Fourth of July weekend appears to be looking much drier than last week’s record rainfalls! Below are list of some of the family fun activities for our Independence Day celebrations within Hernando and Citrus counties!

HERNANDO COUNTY

The Second Annual Nature Coast Freedom Fest kicks off today at Florida Classic Park. Fireworks displays, a kid’s zone, food and drink vendors and live music will be available all night long. Rodney Atkins will take the stage this evening belting out tunes such as his #1 hit “It’s America” and “These are My People”. The fireworks display this evening, put on by Pyrotecnico, will be the only organized display in Hernando County and promises to be awe inspiring! The kid’s zone is offering bouncy houses, face painting and wall climbing to keep those little ones smiling! Gate’s open at 3:00 p.m. and ticket prices are $5 per person, with a $5 per car parking fee. Florida Classic Park is located at 5630 Lockhart Rd, just west of I-75. Coolers will not be permitted in the park.

On Saturday, June 4th at 9:30 a.m., The Hernando Sportsman’s Club will be hosting an Independence Day Machine Gun Shoot in the Chassahowitzka Wildlife Management Area. Five cars and other assorted targets will be destroyed! Admission into the shoot is $2 for adults, children under 13 are free, and if you bring your own gun you can participate in the festivities for $20 for the whole day. For more information please call 352-597-9931.

CITRUS COUNTY

A 4th of July Old-Fashioned Picnic and Patriotic Pageant kicks off at the Inglis Community Center at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow, Saturday, July 4, 2009. The Community Center is located at 137 SR 40 West in Inglis, for more information, please call 447-3323.

There will be a Patriotic Evening at Liberty and Wallace Brooks Parks in Inverness starting at 7:00 p.m. tonight. If you care to register for the 5K run and one mile walk be at the park no later than 5:30 p.m. For more information please call 726-2611 ext. 1309.

Tomorrow, Saturday, July 4, 2009 at 10:00 a.m. the Happy birthday USA and Crystal River Family Fun Day begins! King’s Bay Park on the NW 3rd St. is where the fun begins…Fireworks will start at 9:00.

May everyone have a save and happy 4th of July!

Mr. Dean Creps will be speaking tonight at Green World Paths on herbology, Florida Wild edibles and their medicinal healing properties.

As an extra bonus and a prelude to a new wildlife class that will be hosted next month, two special visitors will be there this evening; a new born fawn and a raccoon.

Also joining the class this evening will be Ray Nielson, discussing the efforts to keep the Little Rock Cannery in Hernando County doors open. Due to the downfall in the economy, the county is considering shutting down the cannery! Green World Path is accepting mason Jars and any other type of glass canning jars as a donation to the cannery, if you have any laying around.

All classes at Green World Path are free. The center is located at 1665 Donto Way in Brooksville, or if you have any questions please call 352-799-0200.

other related articles
Little Rock Cannery in Hernando County is Facing Extinction

Brooksville, Hernando County, Florida, is getting ready to put into action the first curbside recycling program! With the aid from Wal-Mart, who will be donating thousands of plastic bags, the city will be able to incorporate recycling into it’s regular pick-up days; Free of charge.

Starting on September 2nd of this year, the schedule will be as follows:

The first Wednesday of the month ~ plastic aluminum and tin
The second Wednesday of the month ~ newspapers, magazines, paper bags and phone books
The third Wednesday of the month ~ cardboard

As the program is still new, the city will be able to schedule the recycling pick-up days on the regular bulk and yard waste days, so there should be no extra cost to the company at this time. However, if the residents of Brooksville engage in enough recycling activity the program could require and extra route, which could provide a few extra jobs.

The recyclable bags will be givien out by the city to any residents that wish to take part in the program.

According to Toby Gray, GM of the Wal-Mart distribution Center on Kettering Road, he believes it’s the first time they have helped a city with a curbside recycling effort.

Way to go, Hernando County!

other related articles
Citrus County, Florida Strives to Take one More Step in Going Green

Mortgage interest rates are still on the rise! The rates for a 30-year fixed mortgage leapt to 5.42% from 5.38% last week, according to Freddie Mac. The rate increase is due in part to the climb in treasury yields on long-term government debt, as the two are closely related. Although the yields are falling back down from and 8-month high of 4.01%, the mortgage rates have not returned to the percentage that they once were.

With all the signs of a recovering market, the higher mortgage rates could be a threat to the market, as potential homebuyers may decide to hold off on home buying. The consumer confidence index now stands at 49.3, which is quite a significant difference from the May index of 54.8. May’s figures showed the highest level since September of 2008, when the level was 61.4.

According to Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board Consumer Research Center, the decline in consumer confidence “continues to imply that economic conditions, while not as weak as earlier this year, are nonetheless weak.”

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) issued twenty cease-and-desist orders across the country last month. Three of these banks, First Commercial Bank of Tampa, The Royal Palm Bank of Florida in Naples and Premier American Bank in Miami, are located here in Florida!

First Commercial Bank of Tampa Bay has received notice that if they are not able to increase deposits and rid themselves of all dependency on “volatile funding sources”, the FDIC could force a sale.

First Commercial Bank of Tampa is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, but is struggling with a large amount of delinquent real estate loans, inadequate capital and inadequate board supervision, among other charges, according to the FDIC.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist rejected a bill that would allow insurers to charge whatever fee they wanted for property insurance! The reason? He declared that the bill lacked enough consumer protection.

This rejection will ensure that State Farm Florida will indeed leave the Florida property insurance market. Don’t get excited just yet…State Farm may not drop any policies for a year and half, according to the Office of Insurance Regulation. The term “drop” would mean “renew”. According to State Farm, they intend to drop their 900,000 property insurance clients over a two year period and that they will give their policyholders a 180 day notice before their coverage ends.

The process will take some time if indeed State Farm does follow through with their threats, however, according to Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, “I think State Farm was running a bluff when it did what it did; I think the insurance commissioner was running a bluff when he did what he did,” Bennett said. “I think they both lost. But I also think the Florida market is too large for them to walk away. … These are smart people; I don’t think they will leave the state of Florida entirely.”

The Obama Administration authorized the U.S. Small Business Administration to alter its 504 loan program to allow small businesses to refinance any existing loans that were used to purchase real estate or equipment. These changes were made in effort to lower interest rates on the loans thus lowering payments to lenders.

The money that can be saved by making smaller payments to lenders must be used for expanding the business, however most small businesses aren’t interested in “expanding” at the moment; they appear to be more interested in just keeping their doors open! On the flip side of the coin, many others view these changes to the 504 loan program as an opportunity to buy real estate as opposed to renting.

Finding a lender that is participating in Small Business Association loan programs, may be tough as most of the banks dropped out of the SBA loan program last year. However, due to some modifications to the program, lenders are beginning to return.

Although, home sales fell nationally last month in an annual comparison, the State of Florida is showing a gain! Existing home sales jumped 16% over last months sales and existing condos rose 21%, according to the Florida Association of Realtors (FAR).

These statistics mark the ninth month in row that existing home sales have shown a rise in activity. The difference in May’s home sales is that we are starting to see the prices stabilize. The median sales price, the midpoint, for existing home sales in Florida was at $144,400 in May, this shows a drop from last year’s $203,800!

Potential homebuyers are definitely beginning to respond to the favorable market conditions, between the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit and the bargain prices, the market has become enticing.

Tomorrow, Hernando County Commissioners will consider a land lease for NAC (Neubert Aero Corp.) Dynamics, a manufacturer of airport safety products that plans to take up roots at the Hernando County Airport Industrial Park.

The manufacturing company has contracted with Proud Pelican Construction to construct its 10,000 sq ft manufacturing and business facility and Hernando County is prepared to offer building permit and impact fee incentives.

NAC Dynamics plans to use a 1,500 ft. performance test track for calibration and friction testing to explore the friction factor on hazardous runways. The new company could very well provide some much needed jobs in the Hernando County area.

The Obama Administration is dishing out another $3.1 billion towards modifications to the foreclosure program, in an effort to fight the record number of foreclosures. The modifications to the program include adding Residential Credit Solutions of Fort Worth Texas to the mortgage servicing companies that are participating in the program, as well as providing an increase in funds to Countrywide Home Loans Servicing LP.

There have been many questions as to whether or not the original foreclosure program announced in March has made any difference to the suffering real estate industry. The figures last week showed that over 32,000 borrowers have enrolled in the 3-month trial modifications under the plan, according to the Treasury Department