The city had one of its semi-annual neighborhood cleanup days Saturday. I took advantage of it to get rid of some rather old containers of something or other that were in the tool shed when we bought our house twenty something years ago. I’m not quite sure what was in those containers, but I’m guessing it was pretty toxic. I also got rid of some other stuff that had been accumulating, including a toilet we replaced a few weeks ago.
They city had dumpsters spotted at two locations in town and all you had to do was bring your stuff there, show an ID and get rid of it. The next cleanup day will be coming up this fall, so if you live in the city, take advantage of it.
What we DON’T want are couches, mattresses, and misc. other junk sitting on the sides of the streets around town. More than a little bit of this stuff gets dumped by folks who don’t live here. If you see someone dumping household items on the side of the street, report them to the police department. There is a $500 fine for illegal dumping in the city.
These are just little things to make the city look better and help us all have a bit of pride in the appearance of our city. Please do your part.
The city council is looking at the problem of vehicles parked all over the lawns around town. It is safe to say that you can expect us to address this issue at an upcoming meeting.
We had a downtown business owners meeting at the SMARTstart Business Incubator Thursday. There was a good exchange of ideas.
Friday was pretty cool too, as I watched trucks pull up to the business incubator, delivering desks and cubicle partitions that had been scrounged up at no cost. The partitions were donated by St. Leo University and the desks had apparently been abandoned when an agency moved out of a building on Ridge Road. They were all in very nice condition and the price was definitely right.
New businesses are moving into the incubator and there will be a formal open house and ribbon cutting this coming Thursday from 9:00am – 11:00am. If you haven’t been there yet, you need to drop by for the open house. The incubator is located at 6345 Grand Blvd, right across the street from Orange Lake and there is plenty of parking in the Gloria Swanson Parking Lot (enter from Bank Street). Click here for directions.
This coming weekend will be a fun one. The Church Basement Ladies will play again for one last weekend. Sunday is already sold out, so your last chance to catch this will be on Friday night or Saturday night. Don’t delay if you need tickets as both of these shows will also undoubtedly sell out.
The annual Kiafest Main Street Blast is also coming up this Friday, June 27th, and Saturday, June 28th.
The highlight Friday night will be a performance by “The Black Honkeys“, one of my favorite local bands. When you hear bands play the oldies, they fall into three categories:
- They are like bad karaoke, painful to listen to, and you just want to run home screaming in pain and pull out your old albums and try to erase what you just heard the band do to the songs.
- They do a pretty good job of playing the songs the way you remember them and a good time is had by all.
- They play the songs and make you wonder: “WOW! Why didn’t the original artists play this great?”
The Black Honkeys fall into the third group and you do NOT want to miss them. They take the songs and make them their own.
Among other things, there will be a classic car cruise-in Saturday.
Saturday night has a good lineup of musical acts and the evening will be capped off with a fireworks display. The lawn in front of the business incubator is the best place to see the fireworks from.
Admission is free and food and drinks will be available for purchase from a number of vendors. Naturally, you can also visit our great downtown restaurants for a sit down meal if festival food isn’t your thing. You will likely find me at the Mezzaluna restaurant before we go over to the park to enjoy the music Friday night.
See you downtown.
Rob Marlowe, Mayor
City of New Port Richey