• Audrey Moran, Mayor John Delaney’s chief of staff, says she’s taking a much needed break before going back to work. In about six months, Moran plans to return to her legal practice, providing mediation services to local attorneys.
• The Riverside Avenue YMCA seems to have put any consideration of moving aside. They’re undergoing renovations starting this week that include having to close the main men’s locker room for six weeks and the weightlifting area for a few weeks.
• The law office of Miller & Cooper has moved from Philips Highway to Windsor Parke.
• The downtown Firehouse Subs has opened an express take-out window. Customers can call or fax in their orders then pick them up 30 minutes later.
• A City sub-contractor is scheduled to begin work Monday on a sidewalk extension in front of the Florida Theater. By pushing the sidewalk, curb and gutter further from the building, the City hopes to prevent trucks from pulling in too close and hitting the theater’s overhanging marquee.
• Folks are seeing a lot less of Sports and Entertainment Board director Mike Sullivan these days. Thirty pounds less, and five to go, as his diet continues.
• The new City Council term won’t begin for another week, but recently elected and returning Council members already have new portraits, with a couple exceptions. Jerry Holland and Gwen Yates are happy with their old ones and have opted to use them again.
• A couple of nightspots in Jacksonville Beach were visited recently by a film crew from the E cable network program “Wild On.” The Ritz and Lynch’s Irish Pub may be featured in the “Wild On the Beach” episode scheduled to air this fall.
• Rod Firestone runs the local Clear Channel billboard operation and says he’s sensitive to criticism. “People say we’re ‘Litter on a stick,’ ” he says. “I prefer ‘Art on a pedestal.’ ”
• CSX vice president of real estate and industrial development Randy Evans has been named chair of the Jacksonville Housing Authority.
•Apologies to Peyton Transition Team staffer Bennie Seth. We misspelled her name in a City Note last week. And to Jenny Reid of the I.M. Sulzbacher Center for the Homeless. We misidentified her in a recent cutline. She’s the garden project coordinator for the center.
• The City’s new Senior Services Directory is out. It’s free and you can get one at City Hall.
• A new store will open soon on King Street between the Whiteway Delicatessen and Bloomers. Jonathan Brown, who opened Riverside’s Judson’s Restaurant and the Five Points Cafe, will open One of Each Gifts by September, if not sooner.
• The Peyton transition team’s subcommittees will begin this week hearing insider testimony from each of the City’s 12 departments. Chosen for their operational knowledge of the departments, these “subject matter experts” could be department employees, customers or vendors.
• State Sen. Anthony Hill asked Mayor John Delaney last week to help him call for a moratorium on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, which Hill said “damages the spirit of high achievement among students and staff.” Hill will host a FCAT meeting Wednesday night from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at FCCJ’s Downtown campus to hear public views about the test.
• The Regency Wood homeowners association in Arlington requested a school rezoning request be postponed from City Council consideration because their lawyer, Patrick McCormack, was called up for reserve duty in the Persian Gulf. The Council’s Land Use and Zoning Committee heard the proposal anyway.
• Things really are winding down for lots of folks at City Hall. They have been asked to return any City property they may have to include phones, pagers, lap tops and City ID badges.