City Notes

News

Our Downtown This Week magazine tells you everything that’s going on over Super Bowl weekend. It’s free and available all over Downtown.

• It took 40 years for Bill Watson to slow down, but the president of our biggest real estate company apparently is going to smell just a few roses. He’s decided to step up to the chairman’s position and has named one of his vice presidents, Ed Foreman, as Watson Realty’s president. Watson has been the only top dog since he founded the company in 1965.

• We don’t get many out-of-town papers here — hardly any, in fact: New York and Gainesville — but Super Bowl week has brought more. The Philadelphia and Boston papers are flying in their late editions and they’re available at the bigger hotels and the media areas.

• One leaves, another comes. While there’s nothing bigger than the crowds that follow the Super Bowl, the state’s firefighters and rescue squads move into town starting Tuesday for their annual convention and will take up most of the hotels. They’ll meet at various places as they’ve outgrown the Osborn Center.

• Now that the season is almost over, you can turn your pro football thoughts to the draft of college players. The Jaguars’ winning season dropped them to No. 21 on the list but the respected pro Football Weekly newspaper says there may be three good defensive ends — that’s what the Jags need — still on the board, so remember these names: Shawne Merriman of Maryland, Darryl Blackstock of Virginia and Justin Tuck of Notre Dame.

• All those BellSouth trucks? They’ve installed 84,666 yards of fiber cable, more than 2300 voice lines about 100 DSL lines and 25 cell towers. The trucks will be back; they’ve got to pick up all that stuff.

• New officers at our Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northeast Florida include chairman Patrick Donahue from the PGA Tour, treasurer Harlan Mason of PSS World Medical and secretary Rick Dunham of the MPS Group. Directors include attorneys Fred Franklin, Latasha Garrison, Mark Mahon, Frank Keasler and Arthur Hernandez.

• Our visitors will get a fond farewell at the airport. Through Tuesday, all visitors will be greeted with live music all day as they approach the center courtyard.

• Back to business: the Chamber’s Government Affairs Committee meets Tuesday morning and we hear they’ll meet their new director. She — she — replaces Alison Miller, who left to become the aide to City Council Vice President Kevin Hyde.