• Speaking of Florida Coastal School of Law, professor Nancy Hogshead-Makar didn’t make Saturday’s FCSL commencement ceremony, but she had a good reason. She was in Springfield, Mass. where she was the commencement speaker at Springfield College. U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy also addressed the graduates.
• Land use attorneys are not responding positively to new Eminent Domain restrictions recently passed by the Legislature. Mark Bentley, an attorney for Gray, Harris & Robinson in Orlando, used his blog to sum up their feelings in verse. With apologies to the Beatles, Bentley wrote: “Yesterday, If your property was in a CRA, we could take it for a Circle K, now the Legislature has said ‘no way,’ oh I believe in yesterday.”
• Incoming Jacksonville Bar Association president Kelly Mathis doesn’t think the JBA should be a political organization, but he makes a couple of exceptions. He thinks the JBA should advocate for independent courts and for access to courts.
• We’re losing a good hotel general manager as Terry Crawford, who has run the World Golf Village’s hotel, is being transferred to a Virginia property.
• One of the local players trying to make the Jaguars is Jamaal Fudge and they’re trying to make him welcome. He wore No. 24 at Clemson but he can’t do that in the National Football League because defensive backs can’t wear numbers in the 20s, so they swapped the digits and gave him No. 42.
• The Florida Association of Realtors has announced its high school scholarship winners and only two locals are on the list of 39 recipients. Britni Moore of Fernandina Beach High won a $5,000 scholarship and Dana Teppert of Nease won a $1,500 scholarship. The scholarships were part of FAR’s essay contest.
• More than 50 Jacksonville restaurants will join in a food fight June 8 at the Alltel Stadium. The EverBank of Florida will host its 16th Annual Jacksonville Food Fight to benefit the Lutheran Social Services Second Harvest Food Bank. Tickets are $50 in advance or $60 at the door. A VIP package of 8 tickets, early admission, private seating and a special menu is another option for a $600 contribution.
• Speaking of contributions, the Letter Carriers Food Drive started last week with a goal to collect 300,000 pounds of nonperishable foods from Jacksonville neighborhoods. Information packets will be delivered to Northeast Florida neighborhoods and the and letter carriers will collect the food from houses Saturday. Donations will then be sent to Second Harvest to be distributed to 400 non-profit agencies.
• Have a gun? Have children? The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, as part of a nationwide program to ensure safe and responsible firearms ownership and storage, is distributing gun locks. Project Child Safe was developed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation and is supported by a U. S. Department of Justice grant. To receive one of the locks, contact the JSO.
• “We’re not the ketchup company.” Walt O’Shea, vice president of Hines, the developer of The St. John condominium tower on the Southbank, said this at last week’s unveiling of the tower. He said he made this clarification five years ago to St. Augustine’s city council when the master-planned community of Palencia was announced.