• Paving has started on the Shipyards site. Don’t get excited about housing, however — it’s being prepared for Super Bowl week.
• The rector at one of our biggest Episcopal churches is leaving. Rev. Leigh Spruill is moving to Nashville to take over a big church there.
• Best wishes to Nwabufo “Obi” Umunna, an intern in Mayor John Peyton’s office. His last day is today and, following a brief respite, he’ll be starting his first semester at the University of Florida School of Law.
• Attorney Hank Coxe was crawling underneath the Christmas tree Thursday at the Bedell Law Firm. While he wasn’t shaking wrapped presents, Coxe was setting up an electric train around the tree. He said he sets the train up every year to entertain children of the firm’s employees that come to the office’s holiday party.
• The Orlando Sentinel sports department apparently has decided it’s going to try and get the Jaguars to move there. Lead columnist Mike Bianchi wrote a Monday column urging the Orlando political leadership to go after Jag owner Wayne Weaver and make him a deal, and columnist David Whitley (a Jacksonville native) attended the Wednesday press conference announcing the “downsizing” of the stadium by covering seats and wrote Thursday “They could make the tarp out of 10,000 mannequins, and it wouldn’t hide the painful truth — Jacksonville is not an NFL city.”
• Pink arm bracelets benefiting Ch. 12/25 anchor Donna Hicken’s breast cancer foundation may be on sale at various Starbucks locations, but downtown workers may have a hard time finding them. The bracelets, which resemble those designed by cyclist Lance Armstrong, aren’t available at locations in Riverside, Lakewood, the Landing or San Marco.
• New at the Mayor’s office: Lynette Ivy, who came over from CSX and is the new assistant to Susie Wiles and Adam Hollingsworth. She worked with Hollingsworth when he was with CSX.
• Billy Casper was a well-known name when the old Greater Jacksonville Open was played and now the famed golfer will have his name on a local business. His company was chosen by the City to run the Golf Club of Jacksonville, the Westside course that the PGA Tour had been managing, though they recently opted out.
• If you want to catch a winter performance at the Jacksonville Landing, you’d better hurry up. Schools, churches and other local groups have been booked to sing and dance in the courtyard all month.