• Home sales again were way off in May, the most recent month tabulated by the Florida Association of Realtors. Sales were down 27 percent with 1,258 sales compared to 1,732 in May 2006. Prices were about the same.
• You can assume it’s no relation: St. Mark’s Episcopal Church’s new communications director is Kathy Christ.
• Florida Coastal School of Law is hosting its Alumni Reception Thursday at The Florida Bar Annual Meeting in Orlando. The reception is from 6:30-8 p.m. at the Orlando World Center Marriott. The annual meeting began Tuesday and ends Friday. For information about the alumni reception call 256-1212.
• AAA Club South and Budweiser are again joining forces to offer “Tow to Go” the week of the Independence Day holiday, Saturday-July 8. The program provides a confidential ride home and a tow to anyone in a bar who has had too much to drink by calling 1-800-AAA-HELP. The service began in 1998 and is credited with keeping more than 6,600 intoxicated drivers off the road during holiday weekends.
• If you go to a Chick-fil-A restaurant or the cart at the Landing this week, say “Happy 40th Birthday!” The first location opened in Atlanta in 1967 and today there are more than 1,300 restaurants in 37 states. That plus $2.2 billion in sales in 2006 makes Chick-fil-A the nation’s second-largest chicken chain, behind KFC.
• If you couldn’t take part in last weekend’s beach litter removal effort, you’ll have another chance July 5 when the City of Jacksonville’s Clean it Up, Green it Up division partners with the Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol for round two. Volunteers will be needed from 7-9 a.m. and from 5:30-7:30 p.m. where the ocean meets Atlantic Boulevard, Beach Boulevard and 16th Avenue South. Participants must be at least 18 years old or accompanied by an adult. For information, call 630-3420 or 613-6081 or visit BSTP.net.
• Food Network host Mark Silverstein and celebrity chef Daisy Martinez, star of “Daisy Cooks!” will be at the Avenues Mall Saturday for a food, wine and cooking show. They will be joined by local chefs Tony Corrente from The Chef’s Garden, Jason Gishler from Culhanes, Pete Smith from Sweet Pete’s and Mark Oellerich from the Chart House restaurant who will compete in a cook-off to win the Simon Super Chef Crystal Award. The event will be held from 11:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. near Dillard’s. For information, call 363-3060 or visit www.simon.com.
“The United States is the only great nation whose government is operated without a budget. The fact is to be the more striking when it is considered that budgets and budget procedures are the outgrowth of democratic doctrines and have an important part in developing the modern constitutional rights. The constitutional purpose of a budget is to make government responsive to public opinion and responsible for its acts.”
– William Howard Taft