• Tegan Bohan, a communications point person for Mayor John Peyton’s campaign, resigned earlier this week. Following the campaign, she was given a job as an aide to fire department spokesperson Tom Francis.
• An ordinance making its way through City Council calls for the establishment of a “go-cart trust fund.” It’s in still in draft form, but providing Mayor Peyton signs the bill, a group who regularly uses the go-cart track on 103 St. near Cecil Field will be asked to pay the City $5,000 a year to cover operating and upkeep costs.
• Congratulations to St. Vincent’s Medical Center, which was named one of the country’s best hospitals for heart surgery in a recent ranking by U.S. News & World Report. St. Vincent’s is only one of three Florida hospitals to make the list.
• The Muscular Dystrophy Association has asked Mayor John Peyton to proclaim the last weekend of August as Jacksonville Fire Fighter Appreciation Week. MDA District director Susie Austin told Peyton that state firefighters contributed more than $1 million to the MDA through their Fill the Boot campaign.
• Congratulations to attorney Paola Parra of Harris, Guidi, Rosner & Mordecai. Fellow lawyer Robert Harris popped the question recently and the couple plans to marry later this year.
• The lighting is currently being switched in the City Council offices. Preferring the new softer white bulbs to the older yellow ones, Council aides have described them as “soothing” and allowing for “more work to get done.”
• A serious traffic accident in Mandarin recently possibly could have been prevented, says City Council member Sharon Copeland, who has been trying to get a traffic light at the scene of the crash for some time.
• Most of the head shots of the City Council members have been updated with the exception of two. Council members Suzanne Jenkins and Pat Lockett-Felder are still waiting to have theirs re-done, opting for another photographer with whom they have worked with previously.
• Sprinkles Children’s Museum is hosting a grand opening for its Mandarin location in the Mandarin Landing Shopping Center Sunday from 1-3 p.m.
• Good news for Neptune Beach residents who have been enduring water and sewer construction. The project is in the final stages — though it’s about four months behind schedule — and should be complete in the next few weeks. That also means street repaving can finally begin.
• Also upcoming at the beach, the 70th Meninak Ocean Marathon swim sponsored by the Meninak Club of Jacksonville is scheduled for July 26 at 9 a.m. at the Jacksonville Beach life guard station.