• Jaguars’ Coach Jack Del Rio says he’ll have a working vacation this week. He’ll go to the Sugar Bowl football game — his eldest daughter is a graduate student at LSU, one of the teams — and he’ll spend time looking at players. “Some good prospects on both teams there,” said Del Rio.
• Work is starting on the stadium park which will go around the Veteran’s Memorial Wall. It’s the only remnant of the old Coliseum.
• Due to on–scene fire engines and a shut–down City block, Monday’s ceremony commemorating the Hotel Roosevelt fire could have caused alarm among downtown pedestrians and nearby building tenants. To keep downtown calm, Downtown Vision, Inc. sent out 10,000 e–mails, alerting workers to the ceremony.
• The 1963 fire conjures mostly bad memories for firefighters of the era, but Battalion Chief Miles Bowers, a 57–year department veteran who battled the blaze, took home one pleasant memory. Miss America was staying in the Roosevelt that day. “We could all tell our friends that we had been in Miss America’s room,” said Bowers.
• After months of tough labor negotiations with the City, Professional Association of City Employees president Jack Daniels is sounding a conciliatory tone to the mayor. “No matter how ugly the relationship becomes between . . . your administration and PACE, I want you to know that I personally will remain one of your multitude of admirers,” Daniels told John Peyton in a letter last week.
• Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean have organized three meetings, scheduled for Jan. 7 at 7 p.m. at Fuel Coffeehouse in Riverside, Village Inn Restaurant in St. Augustine, and Shelby’s Coffee Shoppe in Neptune Beach.
• Attorney Gene Nichols says he’s getting lots of grief from our story last week on his wife, Caroline. We reported that her husband’s name was Oliver. That’s the dog.
• The Chamber’s Downtown Council has sold out its “Tour de Downtown” next Monday, a bus tour to update members on changes in the city. They’re trying to get another bus.
• The non-profits have been chasing ex-mayor John Delaney to be a board member and one has caught him: now the UNF president, he’ll join Community Hospice.