• Anyone wanting subscriptions or printing lost a smiling face this week when Elsa McLintock passed away. She was the first person you saw when you entered Bailey Publishing’s offices at 10 N. Newnan St. and doubled as the keeper of the basket of candy. A memorial service will be held this morning at 10 a.m. at Hardage-Giddens Funeral Home, 5753 Blanding Blvd. The family will then take her back to Rhode Island for burial.
• If it looks like the U.S. Courthouse is under attack this morning, it’s just a drill. The U.S. Marshall service and several other local organizations will be conducting a critical incident exercise to prepare courthouse workers to safely evacuate the building in case of a real emergency.
• The JEDC’s ongoing review is sure to set some new standards in place for who gets incentives and where they use them. But Auchter Company president Brad Glass, also a JEDC commissioner, said the City will need to be consistent in applying those standards. “Once we have criteria in place, we need to stick to it and set a precedent,” said Glass. “We’re going to have developers telling us, ‘Wait a minute, you did this kind of project last year,’ and we need to tell them that this is a new deal now.”
• The mayor has charged the JEDC with bringing “higher paying jobs” to Jacksonville. That euphemism has led to several discussions about what kind of jobs qualify. Hallmark Properties principal William Alex Coley, one of the private businessmen consulting the advisory committees, thinks he has it figured out. “I see we don’t say ‘high-wage jobs’ we say ‘higher-wage jobs.’ That’s going to be our code for low-wage jobs,” he said.
• CSX Transportation was one of the major contributors to the campaign to kill Florida’s high-speed rail project. The locally-based rail company contributed $50,000 of $1.3 million raised by Derail the Bullet Train in this year’s second quarter.
• Those clowns in the mayor’s office Wednesday morning — yes, they were real clowns — were there to receive a proclamation from Mayor John Peyton in honor of clown day.
• The Jacksonville Telco Building at 421 W. Church St. has been sold to an Atlanta-based company for $5.45 million. Brad Chrischilles, who handled the sale for Trammel Crow Company, says the sale reflects a trend of investors looking for property close to the new Duval County Courthouse.The new owners plan to turn the building into office space.
• Speaking of the courthouse, City COO Dan Kleman is scheduling individual meetings with City Council members to discuss the courthouse. Kleman is said to be keeping the Council “in the loop” on the matter but the mayor’s office said the meetings do not preclude any type of formal announcement.
• Mayor John Peyton is the speaker at Monday’s Rotary Club of Jacksonville meeting at the Omni and word is he’ll have a “mystery major announcement.”