• The Jaguars came close to a playoff berth but their season is over after Sunday’s 13-6 win in Oakland. The team now starts working on the 2005 season with the first order of business being to determine which players they’ll retain.
• Duval County’s supervisor of elections independent candidate Darcy Richardson, a specialist with Merrill Lynch, sent out a release criticizing the supervisor’s $120,000 annual salary as exorbitant. If elected, Richardson said he would return a third of that paycheck, which he said exceeds the salaries of more than 30 state governors and is nearly triple Jacksonville’s median household income.
• New name: Coppenbarger Homes is taking the name of its new owner, Standard Pacific Homes.
• Now every seat at Mongo’s Flat Hot Grill at the Landing is the best in the house. Owners Linda and John Hurd have replaced every chair with softer, roomier seats in the main dining room and customers say they’re a huge improvement.
• Temporarily helping out at the Jacksonville Landing: Ashley Sleiman, Landing owner Tony Sleiman’s daughter. She’s doing some work in the Landing’s management office right now, but is planning to go to law school.
• Best Wishes to Christine Sasser. Sasser, a long time City employee and aide to Council vice president Kevin Hyde, starts her first week as a full-time mom today. Her replacement, former Chamber director of Government Affairs Alison Miller, also starts today.
• Be on the lookout for representatives from the Metropolitan Planning Organization downtown. Over the next few days they’ll be marking spaces where decorative bike racks will be installed this month. Once in place, each of the racks will be able to hold two bikes. Why so few? They’ll resemble lamp posts when vacant, thus blending in better with the rest of the downtown surroundings.
• The Chamber’s Downtown Council opens its 2005 year on Friday with Chamber chair Bob Helms of Wachovia as the speaker. It’s at 7:45 a.m. at the River City Brewing Company.