Things To Do In SW Florida

Enzian Theater, which marked its 40th anniversary in February, has hired a new executive director — its first in more than five years.

The nonprofit arts organization in Maitland will announce today that Wade Neal will take up the post on July 10.

Neal previously served as assistant executive director at The Grand Cinema and Tacoma Film
Festival in Washington state. Here, he also will lead the Florida Film Festival, which the Enzian produces each year.

“I’m just completely honored to join this organization,” said Neal in a phone interview from his Tacoma home, where he was packing for the move to Central Florida with his wife Kathlyn and their two dogs.

His interest in the organization was piqued by its unusual name; Neal had seen the word “Enzian” on the nametag of the theater’s programming director, Matthew Curtis, as the men crossed paths over the years while scouting movies at the annual Sundance Film Festival in Utah.

“What is the Enzian? I must find out,” Neal recalled thinking. “It didn’t take long to find out it had world-class programming and was so important to its community.” read more

Lake County commissioners called the first-ever Agricultural Lands Workshop to help provide solutions for preserving the county’s rich farming history. But instead they got an earful from growers and farmers about the challenges that have forced dozens of families to sell their land for development.

“Labor is the biggest challenge for us because we’re very specialized and labor-intensive in our farming,” Austin Spivey, production manager at Cherrylake Farm in Groveland, said. “I think it takes one person per five acres for a whole year to perform all the different tasks. We have 720 acres, so that’s like 143 people we have to employ just to produce the crop, and that doesn’t get it to market, doesn’t get it to the loading dock, doesn’t sell it.”

Spivey said Cherrylake has been innovative in looking to automate and mechanize production, but is struggling with securing domestic labor for the farm.

Groveland’s Cherrylake Tree Farm has relied on migrant workers with temporary H2-A visas during the farm’s busy season. Tom Frost of TG Frost Land and Cattle said there are plenty of hands willing to work his cattle ranch, but a lack of affordable land is putting a major strain on the business. read more

Get ready, condominium unit owners. Most of the provisions in this year’s condo reform bill, unanimously passed by the House and Senate and recently signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, take effect on July 1.

The bill is the Legislature’s third attempt since the 2021 collapse of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside to clarify safety measures imposed to prevent further catastrophes.

The new laws were promoted as a way to help low-income condo unit owners remain in their homes by allowing some associations to delay fully funding required reserves while financing repair costs. But some condo attorneys say they also include numerous requirements that will flummox elected board members — and possibly dissuade others from volunteering to serve.

The legislation includes a long list of changes and tweaks regarding how elections and meetings are conducted, how improvements are financed, how loans can be approved, and what records must be maintained and where. It also tightens oversight by the state over association functions. read more

Northrop Grumman saw some fiery drama during a test of a more powerful version of the solid rocket booster that would be used if NASA’s Artemis program ever gets to its ninth launch using the beleaguered Space Launch System rocket.

During a Thursday live stream by NASA of a static fire of the 156-foot-long Booster Obsolescence and Life Extension (BOLE) solid rocket motor, the end nozzle blew apart, sending debris flying across the camera followed by a black plume of smoke rising up from Northrop’s Promontory, Utah test site.

“Whoa,” said one of the test controllers during the stream, just after the 100-second mark of the hot fire. Laying on its side, the booster was burning through the same amount of fuel that it would as if used on a launch.

Northrop Grumman officials addressed the nozzle’s demise in a press release later Thursday.

“Today’s test pushed the boundaries of large solid rocket motor design to meet rigorous performance requirements,” said Jim Kalberer, Northrop Grumman’s vice president of propulsion systems. “While the motor appeared to perform well through the most harsh environments of the test, we observed an anomaly near the end of the two-plus minute burn.” read more