• Congrats to the JEDC’s Bob Olsen. He’s a past chair of The Players Championship and won the “Announcer of the Year” award for announcing scores.
• Going to The Players Championship Saturday really impressed the 20 visitors being squired around town by the Jacksonville & the Beaches Convention and Visitors Bureau. But the 16 meeting planners and four guests were really blown away by being treated to a special dinner at Alltel Stadium, where they were the only diners, and by a visit to the Jacksonville Zoo. One of the guests was so impressed by the Range of the Jaguar exhibit that he used it for his call-in spot for his St. Louis radio show.
• The mayor’s office has distributed a briefing sheet on the City’s proposed Alltel Stadium improvement deal to all department heads and division chiefs. The sheet is designed to allow them to answer media questions as the deal moves through the City Council.
• UNF small business consultant Bob Myers says the three biggest obstacles to small business success downtown are the cost of rent, security and a lack of parking. He said his downtown clients complain loudest about the parking shortfall. “It’s not that customers don’t want what they offer,” he said. “It’s that they can’t get to the place.”
• St. Joe CEO Peter Rummell sent Mayor John Peyton a copy of the Tipping Point. The Malcolm Gladwell book came with recommendations from Rummell and City Chief Financial Officer Walt Bussells. The book describes how social trends and ideas spread like a virus through word of mouth. For example: New York’s plummeting crime rate in the 1990s. Rummell told Peyton in a note that Jacksonville could be “at or near the Tipping Point.”
• State Rep. Stan Jordan will be in town Monday to attend a follow-up meeting on the mayor’s ongoing process to improve City permitting. The last meeting generated about 100 pages of transcripted citizen comment. Jordan said he hopes the heavy participation continues.
• Jaxport is still the top-ranked port in the when it comes to security. The State recognized Jaxport as being the only large cargo deepwater port in Florida to be “substantially compliant” with security standards. It is the highest ranking received among all large Florida cargo ports.