• City Council member Art Shad’s bill amending Council officer elections was expected to be indefinitely pulled from the Council agenda, but it’s been salvaged by Council member Lake Ray, who asked for the bill be deferred. “There are problems in the election process right now. It’s somewhat divisive and I’d like to see that change,” said Ray. “I don’t know if this is the right bill, though. I may substitute something else in the near future.”
• Big weekend for the Revellers, our version of Mardi Gras. This year’s king” Bob Jones of R.C. Jones Furniture.
• Reese J. Henderson Jr. is the newest shareholder in the law firm of Tritt & Franson, P.A.
• A group of 20 travel journalists and their guests will be arriving in Jacksonville today for a media familiarization trip with the activities of the Carnival Miracle, Carnival Cruise Lines’ newest ship. The visitors, from around the United States and as far away as the United Kingdom, are staying at the Adam’s Mark Hotel and will go on Friday’s inaugural cruise.
• A sure sign of spring: the San Marco Art Festival returns March 20 and 21.
• Jim McCollum of BellSouth, Audrey Moran, former chief of staff for Mayor John Delaney, and Eleanor Gay, community advocate, will be honored April 15 as outstanding alumni of Leadership Jacksonville at Celebration, the organization’s annual fundraising event.
• Skanska USA Building, Inc. has been named the project manager for the Edward Waters College expansion, which includes six buildings: an athletic facility, library, classroom, retail shop, dormitory and hotel.
• Shands Jacksonville’s plans to build a new Veteran’s Administration Clinic on Jefferson Street have hit a small snag. The site’s current tenants, the St. John’s Horizon House’s River Region Human Services program, can’t find a new location. Shands president Jim Burkhart asked for Mayor John Peyton’s help in relocating the Horizon House building by October.
• Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio thanked Mayor Peyton for Jacksonville’s assistance in improving Tampa’s Alliance for Persons with Disabilities. Iorio said Jacksonville’s Disabled Services Division was “a role model for other cities to follow,” and thanked Jack Gillrup, the division’s chief, for working with Tampa the last nine months.
• Shipping company HUAL’s newest vessel will set sail on its maiden voyage from Jacksonville later this month. Hual will hold a reception Feb. 26 at Jaxport’s Blount Island Terminal, on board the HUAL America, which the shipping company says is “a state–of–the–art example of a modern car/truck carrier.”
• There’s one local in the latest list of attorneys disciplined by the Florida Supreme Court. James Vance Walker of Ponte Vedra Beach was suspended from practicing law in Florida for 10 days.