Whenever he is asked to pinpoint the exact location of his real estate office at Hernando Beach, Tom Dishman, co-owner of Weaver Group Realty, with his wife Tammy, he always offers the same response. “Watch for the mermaid!” he says with a smile.

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Indeed, Dishman’s office at 3436 Shoal Line Blvd. is fronted by the artistic representation of a mermaid’s grotto. A golden-haired, sparkly-finned siren statue sits tall and proud on a painted pedestal. She’s posed beside a vibrant stone-encased mural that depicts the majesty of a Florida sun rising high in a jewel blue sky, just above a dazzling aquiline wonderland brimming with stately manatees, vividly patterned fish and a rainbow-hued spectrum of florals and coral.

Yet, another mural fronts Weaver’s entrance as well; this one boasts the artistic representation of an adorable sea turtle swimming through a circle formed by the words, “Hernando Beach, Weeki Wachee, FL, Nature Coast.”

This trio of artistic masterworks is the creation of Spring Hill Artist Karen Governale and stands as an ornamental representation of the blossoming Hernando Beach arts scene.

Weaver Realty is a host of the Hernando Beach Front Porch Art Walk, conducted the first Saturday of each month from 10 am to 2 pm. Sponsored by the Hernando County Fine Arts Council and the Coastal Hernando Business Group, this is a dynamic, open-air event in which artists show and sell their wares on the properties of host businesses that include Weaver, the Silver Dolphin Restaurant, Brian’s Place, and Beverly’s Coastal Interiors, all located along Shoal Line Boulevard.

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The next Front Porch Art Walk will take place on May 6, and aside from a vast selection of art, the walk will feature food, fudge, and ice cream for sale, plus raffles for gift cards, art and other prizes, and children’s art activities.

“Our first Saturday’s Front Porch Art Walk has grown. We’ve had as many as 32 artists, and now that snowbirds are returning back to the north, we still have about 25. Silver Dolphin, Brian’s, and Weaver Group have had artists displaying at their locations… We’ve had some fabulous artists, and some have been selling $500 pieces.”

Tom Dishman is pleased to introduce Weaver Realty Group to the Front Porch Art Walk movement. He revealed, “My wife and I love art, and when Diane mentioned the idea of the Front Porch Art Walk, our hands were up to participate. This is a great way to support local businesses and bring art to the neighborhood. This is an art show where people walk up and down and enjoy what they see.”

The Dishmans’ love of art also inspired them to procure a mermaid statue in the Destination Mermaids – The Tail Trail project, co-sponsored by Florida’s Adventure Coast Visitors Bureau, Brooksville Main Street, and the Hernando County Fine Arts Council. A colorful coterie of life-sized mermaid statues lines The Tail Trail, launched to mark the 75th Anniversary of Weeki Wachee Springs.

The first phase of the Tail Trail consists of 25 life-sized mermaids on display throughout Hernando County at the local businesses and agencies that have agreed to sponsor and display these 80-pound statues, standing 6’8″ tall and 32” in diameter and 54″ across. “When we first bought Weaver Realty Group in November, we decided that we wanted to see art here every day,” said Tom Dishman. “We are so excited by the look and color of the mermaid. She looks so real and shimmers in the sunlight.”

Governale did indeed intend the mermaid statue known as Lorelai to be a work of vivid color and lush tropical design. “This is my first statue, and–while I originally wanted to think outside the box and come up with a design that didn’t have to do with the ocean–I decided to go with a tropical, colorful design,” she said.

From her long golden hair to her glittery pink tail and even her teal-hued fingernails, Lorelai does indeed boast the classic look of a mermaid. Her name even draws from the annals of classic mermaid lore.

“I Googled mermaid names and came across Lorelai,” said Governale. “It’s funny, my mom told me that she had considered naming me Lorelai.”

Governale, who has been an artist since childhood and specializes in media that ranges from murals to pet portraits, found it a particular challenge to sometimes assume uncomfortable positions in order to paint a full-scale statue and to apply enamel paints. Yet she is greatly pleased with the public response to her Mermaid Trail statue. “I especially love how children run up to Lorelai and just stare,” said this mother of three. “And the Dishmans were so pleased with the results, they asked me to paint two murals at Weaver.”

These four-by-six murals are meant to complete the tropical theme of the Weaver Group Realty art display, providing Lorelai with her own home at sea. “This artwork reflects the look and feel of Hernando Beach, of Weeki Wachee,” said Tom Dishman. “People stop to take pictures with Lorelai, and folks visit here as they complete the Tail Trail.”

“Our art is meant to embrace the artsy feel of this community,” he said. “We embrace the feel.”

Interested artists and business people who wish to participate in the Front Porch Art Walk can contact Diane Greenwell at dianemgreenwell@gmail.com or (304) 633-7110.

BROOKSVILLE — Jeff Rogers was glowing as he described coming plans for a recreation area in Hernando Beach that he said will put the county on the map.

During a break at the April 11 County Commission meeting, the county administrator said: “100% it’s happening.”

The new county park will be called the “Mermaid Lakes Recreation Area,” Rogers said during the meeting, and it should be operational this time next year.

In his update on the Weeki Wachee Preserve for Shoal Line Boulevard Recreation Project, Rogers described a plan in which the county would lease 350 acres out of the 11,000 acres in four of the 14 lakes in the Preserve.

Access to the Preserve would be through the R Beach property along Shoal Line Boulevard that the county bought for $780,000 in March 2022. There would be a bridge to the Preserve, Rogers said, and a bridge would not only make the Preserve ADA-accessible, but it would be able to carry water and sewer lines to bathrooms that could be provided.

Non-motorized vessels like kayaks and canoes would be permitted on the lakes, he added.

“It’s just an increased level of access in the Preserve,” he said.

County Commissioner Beth Narverud said she liked the plan but had a suggestion: Allow “tubing” in the water. Her children, she said, went to South Carolina for a vacation and had access to a park for $6 per day, and went tubing.

“My kids thought it was the best thing ever,” she said. She advocated for “passive” recreation with a light touch that would avoid damage to the preserve but provide fun and recreation.

A berm that’s there could come down and be replaced with a boardwalk or a trail, Rogers said, and it would be a county park.

County Commissioners Brian Hawkins and Steve Champion said they liked the idea, with the latter saying the county should buy the land outright because of its popularity, or maybe go for a long lease, like 50 years.

Champion said he sees the same recreation the area had 40 years ago, but the population has soared and there isn’t anything more than there was then.

“I think it would be a fantastic thing for our community,” said Jerry Campbell, who said he supported moving forward with negotiations for a lease but would support a purchase.

There has been opposition to plans to create another park in the Hernando Beach area, but residents who spoke were in support.

Bill Roberts said it is a recreational area now, but it needs help.

“The Preserve needs the help; the county needs the recreation,” he said. “It needs to be developed with mindful, smart development.”

Charles Greenwell, of Hernando Beach, said it could be like the Riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas, and transform the town.

“I support what you’re doing,” he said. “It takes courage as a commissioner to stand up to the criticism.”

Commission Chairman John Allocco said it makes sense to move forward with the plan. Rogers said he’d work toward negotiating a lease with the Southwest Florida Water Management District (Swiftmud) and updated plans.

The vote to move forward was 5-0.

“It is going to be a great attraction for us,” Rogers said.

River worries

The issue of the Springs Protection Zone is proving to be a harder nut to crack. Allocco complained that the river needs to be protected and the commission would like a 2.35-mile area to be protected from mooring, anchoring, beaching and people going ashore (except for residents of the area), but the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission only wants to protect .62 miles, using 20 “Point Bars” where such activities would be prohibited.

There would have to be signs on both ends of the point bars, and already signs that are up are ignored. Not only that, enforcement is a problem because of staffing as well as the fact that people who are caught and ticketed could complain that they were outside the limits of the Point Bars.

The next meeting is May 10, Rogers said, in Miami, and the county’s proposal is on the agenda for discussion. In September, they’ll vote on the county’s request for the protection zone.

Allocco expressed frustration with the state’s bureaucracy and a seeming desire to not enforce the rules while at the same time strongly enforcing rules regarding hunting.

“If I approve this, I would be just as responsible for the degradation of the river as doing nothing,” he said.

Another worry is that people might start docking outside the enforcement areas, and damage those areas.

“It doesn’t seem like they’re thinking this through,” Campbell said of the FWC.

Greenwell of Hernando Beach said that what matters is consistency of enforcement, which would be easier than spot checks and arguments over where you are on the river.

Right now, there are plenty of no parking signs and no one seems to obey them, he said.

Water management officials say no to the Hernando County beach proposal but will allow a new public access point.

By

Published April 1

The much-discussed but never approved plan to create a beach on a mining lake in the Weekiwachee Preserve has once again been rejected by the Southwest Florida Water Management District.

In a letter to Hernando County officials this week, the agency, which owns the preserve, told Hernando County Administrator Jeff Rogers that it is willing to grant the county a new access point and new passive recreational options in the 11,206-acre preserve. But it rejected the beach plan, which has generated opposition from nearby residents and environmental groups.

Water management officials could consider the plan again in five years, but only under specific conditions.

If the county wants to develop the beach in the future, it must purchase the land and would have to prove it can meet all governmental permitting requirements. It also would need a financial plan to purchase and build the beach and other amenities and manage and maintain the property in an environmentally responsible manner.

Those conditions are both challenging.

The price tag of the recreational amenities Hernando wanted to add to the preserve topped $7.7 million without considering a land purchase cost on top. Hernando officials put their hope in paying those costs on the passage of a sales tax referendum, but 55 percent of Hernando’s voters rejected that half-cent, 10-year levy in November.

The county also would have to prove that the public embraces the beach idea, according to the letter from the agency’s Brian Starford, director of operations, lands and resource monitoring.

At the public meeting in October, Hernando County commissioners listened to hours of testimony against the idea from environmental groups, nearby residents of Hernando Beach and a citizens group that included a number of high school students called Preserve the Preserve. Previous efforts over the last two decades have also generated strong opposition and county-run surveys about the proposal were also largely negative.

Still, Rogers is holding out hope that a beach may win approval at some point. While the beach has been rejected for now, he told the Tampa Bay Times that water management district officials have indicated they might be willing to talk sooner than five years from now. He said it was understandable that, with the liabilities involved, the district didn’t want to be in the swimming business.

He is sure that the things the agency has approved, such as allowing access to the preserve from the land the county bought on Shoal Line Boulevard for a new parking lot last year, will provide much-needed passive recreational opportunities in the preserve.

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The district rejected both a proposed land swap for several Hernando County properties and the management agreement proposed by the county but indicated it is willing to negotiate a new management agreement.

What is approved, Starford told Rogers, is improving existing amenities and trails in a smaller area of the preserve than originally requested, using the new Shoal Line Boulevard entrance, building a boardwalk or bridge across the canal along the road at the new entrance and expanding nonmotorized boating access, including a kayak launch.

“The county has attempted this two or three times before, but I can tell you we’ve never gotten so close,” Rogers said. “As for the swimming, I’m not sure the commissioners are going to be 100% excited about having to buy (the property) … but I’m thankful that there’s a way forward and we’ll discuss it at a commission meeting.”

BROOKSVILLE — For almost as long as the 11,206-acre Weekiwachee Preserve has been open to the public, there has been some plan on the table to build a beach there to draw residents and tourists to the site.

One proposal after another has been floated, discussed and discarded over almost 25 years.

The cost, complexity and potential environmental harm, and the steadfast opposition from nearby neighbors and environmental groups has doomed proposal after proposal.

Now the Hernando County Commission has a new plan, one they told County Administrator Jeff Rogers to pursue after another long, emotion-filled public meeting discussing pros and cons last month. This one could hinge on a vote by Hernando residents Tuesday. They are considering a 10-year, half-cent sales tax that could pay for a portion of the recreation plan in the preserve, other recreational expenses and road projects.

The new recreation plan carries an estimated price tag of $7.7 million, a cost commissioners said was likely out of reach without approval of the tax. But they also left the door open to start with the smaller portions of their plan, which includes a new access way, boardwalks, picnic areas, a kayak launch and walking trails, in addition to the beach.

Earlier this year, the county spent $780,000 to buy an old restaurant site on Shoal Line Boulevard adjacent to the preserve. It will provide parking and a new access point into the site.

The four-hour hearing on that purchase included opposition from local high school students and conservation groups concerned about damaging the wildlife corridor and black bear habitat. It also included residents of Hernando Beach, the adjacent waterfront residential community, with some of the priciest homes in the county.

Hundreds of vocal residents there have signed petitions, filled out surveys and packed into the commission chambers over the years with the message that they are glad there is no real beach in Hernando Beach.

But the swimming area proposed for one of the mining pits left on the property has been on the plan since the beginning. In 1995, the Southwest Florida Water Management District used $15.1 million in state preservation money to buy the land from the Oman mining company. The purchase saved the land from development of a 6,000-home community called Oak Sound, which was to have included a 27-hole golf course and a shopping mall.

In 1997, the district opened the Weekiwachee Preserve to the public for passive recreation and established a management plan, which included creating a swimming area in partnership with Hernando County.

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Original plans included a water slide, diving platform, concession stand and a parking lot for 400-500 vehicles. That never materialized. Nor did several other versions of recreational amenities, a tourism center and various beach incarnations staunchly opposed by the community. Recognizing that, the water management district has told the county it wants buy-in from community stakeholders before a recreation plan moves forward.

Commissioners are concerned with what Hernando voters might want, the water management district’s executive director Brian Armstrong said of the controversy over the last plan in 2018. But he said the district represents 16 counties and numerous conservation partners.

“Groups such as the Audubon Society, Nature Conservancy, Native Plant Society and Gulf Coast Conservancy, to name a few, are informed and engaged stakeholders,’’ Armstrong wrote to the county. “The district values being a good neighbor. The district would expect the county to engage with our various stakeholders for input and feedback both at present and in the future, should the proposed project proceed.”

But residents and environmentalists told Hernando commissioners again last month all of the familiar reasons why they thought developing in the preserve was a bad idea.

The preserve boasts 250 species of birds, said Bev Hansen, president of the Hernando County Audubon Society. Keeping the preserve natural and undeveloped is important for that diversity, as well as the corridor it provides other wildlife sandwiched between development to the east of U.S. 19 and to the west in Hernando Beach, she said.

Several recent surveys show residents still oppose development in the preserve, said Hernando Beach resident Lisa Savarese.

“All the residents of Hernando County have told you they do not want this. Your comment cards have told you they do not want this,” she said. “Everybody told you no. Nobody is in favor of this besides the county commissioners.”

Jilian Crowly of the Sierra Club Adventure Coast called the feasibility study for the recreation area, which found no examples of protected species in the area under consideration, “thinly researched.” She also said the proposed recreation area “is deeply unpopular with the people who have taken the time to fill out surveys.”

“We are adamantly opposed” to the project, said Eugene Kelly, an environmental scientist who was representing the Native Plant Society. He said a beach “is not a compatible use of a preserve.”

While the county has argued that a water feature in the preserve would take pressure off the Weeki Wachee River, which shows environmental damage from overuse, one of the river’s most vocal advocates, Mary Ann Johnson, disagreed.

“We’re really not going to take the people off the river,” she said.

Others argued that there are already beaches at Rogers Park, Pine Island and SunWest, all a short drive away, that adding more traffic to two-lane Shoal Line Boulevard will create dangerous congestion, and that the county is already struggling to pay for its other 23 county parks.

Hernando County resident April Johnson-Spence said the preserve in its current passive recreation mode already gets more local visitors than other county parks without having to spend millions. “You have to raise our taxes to add another park for us. It doesn’t make sense,” she said.

But commissioners held steady to their ongoing support for the project.

Commissioner Jeff Holcomb said there is support from the community for the beach and the recreational options but people who support it won’t speak in public because they are afraid of being drowned out by the aggressive opposition.

“This is just about a park,” he said.

Commission chairperson Steve Champion said that the county needs more recreation because existing parks fill up quickly and that nothing new has been added to the recreation scene since he grew up.

Commissioner Wayne Dukes, who lives in Hernando Beach and has repeatedly blasted his neighbors for not favoring tourist development in their community, said he wanted to see the project move forward. He has tried for eight years, he said, and will leave office later this month.

“Move on,” Dukes said to county staff. “Make it happen.”

Hurricane Ian is coming, and there’s not a moment to lose.

That’s the gist of the message from County Administrator Jeff Rogers regarding what residents need to do on this Tuesday.

By Wednesday at about noon, Rogers said to expect the arrival of tropical storm force winds that will increase to hurricane force for the next two days throughout the county. The county is ordering a mandatory evacuation for the area west of U.S. 19, including Aripeka, Hernando Beach and Weeki Wachee, near the rivers and for those living in RVs and manufactured homes.

“With that, we’re going to see a storm surge in our county somewhere between eight feet and 10 feet, depending on where the storm makes landfall,” he said. “That storm surge is going to impact our coastal communities and all those roadways in the coastal communities.”

Water will not just menace homes, he said. Some Hernando Beach homes will be flooded as water rises on Thursday, and hopefully it will start receding on Friday.

Stormwater system overloaded

Rogers emphasized that the need to move now is because the rain is going to flood roads, especially in the low-lying areas, and the stormwater system – already full of water from past day’s rains – will not be able to handle the expected more than 14 inches of rain, especially if Ian slows down when it’s over the area.

“That is more than any significant storm event we’ve had in our community,” Rogers said. The roads and the stormwater system are not designed for 14 inches of rainfall, he said, within a 48-hour period.

If you’ve experienced flooding from heavy rain before, you will be flooded again in the next 48 hours, Rogers said.

Driving on flooded roads is dangerous, he added, not only for citizens but for first responders, who may not be able to rescue people once the storm is overhead and dumping rain on the area. The saturated ground raises the danger of trees falling over, too, and a loss of power starting late Wednesday night and Thursday.

“Please prepare for a loss of power for the next three to five days,” he warned.

Shelters opening

Three shelters will be opening at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 27:

Rogers added that two more shelters could open if needed and they could shelter 12,000 people if necessary. Residents of the areas at risk should seek shelter with friends or family on higher ground or in a place of refuge outside the area.

Self-service sandbag sites are available at:

It’s still too early to tell the details, Rogers said.

“The track continues to loop south of us now,” he said. “This will cause an increased duration event here, with higher level winds and higher-level rain in Hernando County, so we want everyone to stay safe.”