Fourth of July Weekend - Fourth of July Weekend is a big deal in Sarasota, with the parade, the Offshore Grand Prix, all of the associated events and parties, everyone's personal and family celebrations, and Tuesday night's bayfront fireworks display, which wraps it all up and is easily the largest public gathering of the year. While most people have at least one extra day off to enjoy it all, there are a great many city employees who do extra duty to help ensure that the rest of us have a safe, satisfying holiday. In advance, there are those right here in the City Manager's office who wade through all of the requests for special event permits, making sure that conflicts are kept to a minimum and required services are provided with each event so that as much as possible everyone has a good time. There's the Sarasota Police Department, whose members take on the tasks of crowd control, traffic circulation, marine protection (can you imagine what that job must be like during and after the fireworks?) and other extra duties that come with a big holiday. Quietly but spectacularly in the background are our Public Works employees, who will be hauling barricades, dumpsters and whatever else is required logisticaly to pull it all off. If you're at the bayfront Tuesday night, take a look around as you leave at the unbelievable mountain of trash the fireworks-watchers leave behind. Then look again early Wednesday morning - I promise you will find yourself in complete amazement as to how everything went back to normal so quickly. THAT is your Sarasota Public Works Department.

I know I'm leaving someone out, so just take those few as examples of the many who will give up time with their own families to ensure that the rest of ours have a great holiday. To them and all of the private-sector volunteers who also work to make the many events possible I say a big thank you. And Happy Birthday, USA!

10,000 Plus Milestone! - Late last week the number of visits to this blog since December when a counter was added hit 10,000. My thanks to everyone who has participated in this experiment in "local government direct". I know this tool doesn't necessarily reach everyone in town, but it seems to be useful to some - perhaps many. Thanks for reading and for sharing your opinions.