•Among those helping charities by selling concessions was accountant Hays Basford, who got a lesson in beer sales. “A guy came up and showed me his ID card,” said Basford.“It said his birth date was 1986, so I didn’t sell to him. The next guy in line was from the State beverage department. The buyer was a set-up to see if we would sell to underage kids. The state guy told me, ‘You passed the test.’ ”
• All members of the judiciary, the Jacksonville Bar Association and local law firms are invited to a Meet & Greet with a select group of students from Florida Coastal School of Law on Nov. 12, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at The University Club. FCSL Chancellor Don Lively will speak at the event. For more information, call Eric Smith, assistant dean for external affairs, at 680-7758.
• The D.W. Perkins Bar Association has joined the Jacksonville Bar Association in supporting the current architectural plans for the new Duval County Courthouse. Last week, the Perkins Bar, through its board of directors, unanimously passed a resolution, calling the new courthouse “appropriate to improve the administration of justice.”
• New restaurant in Springfield: Steve’s Place opened Friday in the old Maxx’s Pizza location.
• The FBI will brief City officials Nov. 12, regarding special events management and the 2005 Super Bowl. The Bureau invited Mayor Peyton to attend the three-hour briefing at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s North Davis Street training center.
• Congratulations to the staff at Merrill Lynch, who held their own fund raiser to pay for an old-fashioned Halloween carnival for more than 200 children from different daniel programs. The company has paid for the carnival in years past, but, this time around, the employees decided they wanted to do it themselves. daniel is Florida’s oldest child-serving agency.
• The Northeast Florida Paralegal Association luncheon will be held at noon Nov. 6 at The River Club. James Moseley Jr., president of the Jacksonville Bar Association, will speak.
• The mayor’s permitting task force met twice last week to discuss changes to the structure of its permitting department. The mayor’s transition team heard consistent complaints that the current process is needlessly complicated and time consuming. By the end of its work, the committee stated its goal was “to have the City of Jacksonville become the benchmark within the permitting industry.”
• The movie “Radio” tells a true story of a mentally challenged youth who befriends a football coach in Anderson, S.C.’s T.L. Hanna high school. The school’s second most famous alumni? How about the mayor’s speech writer and former press secretary to the late Sen. Strom Thurmond and former U.S. Rep. Tillie Fowler, Susan Pelter?