NEW PORT RICHEY -- There will be no exploding volcanoes or fruit fly gestation displays. The annual elementary school science fair is kaput this year in Pasco, a victim of budget cuts.

This will be the first time in a decade without the districtwide competition for elementary students. Last year's fair drew 246 entries from students who won preliminary competitions at their local schools.

In October, Superintendent John Long began trimming the district budget by about $3-million, Pasco's share of statewide cuts in education funding. One of Long's first moves was to institute a hiring freeze on administrative jobs, including the science supervisor, whose responsibilities include coordinating the county science fair.

The cancellation comes as the state prepares to unveil a new standardized science test that it plans to incorporate into its school grading program. Participation in science fairs districtwide has more than doubled in the past 10 years.

Middle and high school students, who compete at the district and state science fairs for scholarships, internships and other prizes, will still have a science fair.

Dade City makes magazine's list of places to sit a spell

DADE CITY -- "This five-star small town evokes memories of a slower-paced, quieter, friendlier America of a half century ago," a nationally distributed magazine gushes this month when it ranks Dade City among the country's best retirement spots.

Dade City is listed alongside such locales as Tucson, Ariz., Hilton Head, S.C., and the ritzy Florida towns of Sanibel Island and Boca Raton in the magazine Where to Retire in a special issue that compiles a decade of reviews and research. It boasts a readership of more than 400,000 affluent Americans, according to the magazine's editor and publisher, R. Alan Fox.

In his introduction to this month's special section on retirement destinations, editor Richard Fox said he traveled the country examining cities small and large. Many of the magazine's choices are small towns, Fox reported, because Americans are seeking an escape from big-city life.

Mayor bans Satan from Inglis, strips his power

INGLIS -- The words just flowed from Carolyn Risher's pen as she sat at the kitchen table Halloween night. She wrote fast, ignoring commas and periods.

When the Inglis mayor finished, she put the fierce rhetoric down on official town stationery complete with gold seal.

"Be it known from this day forward that Satan, ruler of darkness, giver of evil, destroyer of what is good and just, is not now, nor ever again will be, a part of this town of Inglis. Satan is hereby declared powerless, no longer ruling over, nor influencing, our citizens."

She made five copies, one for her office wall. The rest were rolled and stuffed into hollowed-out fence posts placed at the four entrances to the town. The posts, painted with the words Repent, Request and Resist, were sealed and capped.

A petition drive sprang up among people who think her profession of faith shouldn't have been on city letterhead, but the mayor is unapologetic.

"You're either with God or against him," Risher, 61, and a lifelong resident, said from her office Wednesday. "I'm with him."

Potter book conjures up classroom support

NEW PORT RICHEY -- Harry Potter escaped another close scrape.

This time the boy wizard survived a challenge when Mitchell High School principal Tina Tiede announced Friday that teachers can continue to use the popular children's novels in class, thereby rejecting a parent's complaint that the books promote the religion of witchcraft and therefore violate the Constitution's separation of church and state.

Tiede said the books also fall in line with community standards and found the teacher's strategies in using the books to be sound.

William Niland, the parent who lodged the complaint, said he will appeal the decision to the School Board.

"I wasn't surprised (by the decision) at all," Niland said. "We'll get the lawyers involved and go to the board to take it out of all the schools."

Niland said he does not want the books banned from campuses or libraries. He just doesn't want teachers using the stories in class with a captive audience of kids.

Hotel wants to let guests travel on a hovercraft

ST. PETE BEACH -- Coming soon to a beach near you: a 37-foot hovercraft that will whisk passengers from the TradeWinds Island Grande Hotel to downtown St. Petersburg on a cushion of air.

The TradeWinds is partnering with a St. Petersburg hovercraft company in what is believed to be the first commercial hovercraft endeavor in the United States. The canary yellow hovercraft, currently parked behind the company president's Weedon Island home, can carry up to 18 passengers.

In an unusual lobbying technique, Hover-USA plans to give city commissioners a ride on their hovercraft Dec. 11, minutes before commissioners vote on whether to allow the vehicle to use the beach for loading and unloading passengers.

City staff and the Development Review Board already have recommended approval.

Casino boat shuttle is in the works for Tarpon Springs

TARPON SPRINGS -- A company that brings passengers on shuttle boats to an offshore casino boat plans to come to Tarpon Springs by the end of the year, a company executive said Thursday.

Stardancer Casino Cruises wants to bring a 120-passenger shuttle to the Sponge Docks in the next month, said Sam Gray Jr., the company's vice president of marketing. The shuttle will bring people to the El Dorado casino boat 9 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico.

Previous casino boat companies have locked horns with the city because of unpaid fines and the companies' objections to an ordinance that requires at least 1,500 feet of separation between any two locations where offshore tour vessels dock.

The Stardancer shuttle boat would not be subject to that ordinance because it would not carry enough people to qualify as an offshore tour vessel, the city attorney said.

In short . . .

ST. PETERSBURG -- After weighing concerns about noise and traffic tie-ups, the City Council agreed to turn a waterfront corner of downtown into a world-class auto racecourse in 2003. The race, the council reasoned, could mean worldwide television exposure, tens of thousands of visitors and the possibility of millions of dollars being spent in the city.

TAMPA -- City officials gave up on the dream of a pedestrian mall of cafes and boutiques and instead opened Franklin Street to vehicle traffic again. It was 1974 when then-Mayor Dick Greco said the pedestrian mall would create the foot traffic needed to nudge downtown Tampa out of its doldrums. Greco hopes the change will be the first of many to draw people downtown. In a month or two, he promised, the city will announce plans for downtown housing.

Coming up this week

The new Pinellas County administrator, Steve Spratt, takes over next week. Spratt left his job as a Miami-Dade assistant county manager to become Pinellas County's new administrator -- the first new person in the job in 23 years.
Punch card ballots continue to head the way of the dinosaurs. On Wednesday, Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Pam Iorio will ask the County Commission to choose a touch-screen voting machine company and spend the $12-million to buy them.
Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, begins Dec. 9 at sundown.

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