• Interesting tidbit about the upcoming City Council installation ceremony: Federal Judge Timothy Corrigan will be swearing in Vice President-elect Michael Corrigan. They’re cousins.
• More from the installation. Former chief of staff under Mayor John Delaney, Audrey Moran, will emcee the ceremony and Brenda Kelly, executive assistant to Council member Gwen Yates, is a major component of the musical entertainment.
• Friday proved to be a rough start to the weekend for Mayor’s Office receptionist Alice Newman. As she was leaving to go home she was in a mild fender bender. It wasn’t her fault.
• Word is Landmar CEO Ed Burr fared pretty well in a recent blue water fishing tournament in the Bahamas. Burr won the tournament with a 500 or so pound blue marlin which made him about $400,000 in the Calcutta.
• The 4th annual daniel “Bike to School” event is Aug. 6 and it’s being hosted by Venus Swimwear on Beach Boulevard. Registration is at 9 a.m. and the ride begins at 11. The 70-mile ride raises money for school supplies for daniel kids.
• Jacksonville Economic Development Commission members Charles Appleby and Joseph Barrow are both up for reappointment to their second terms on the Commission.
• Speaking of the JEDC, who’s going to replace outgoing Commissioner Susan Hartley? The Mayor’s Office has yet to make an announcement, but we hear they could be close.
• Nice story from Jacksonville’s Justice Coalition. The victim’s advocate group helped mourning mother Cathy Hicks keep a memento from her son, who was shot to death in 2002. Hicks had been paying her son’s cellular phone bill since his death so she could listen to his voice on the voice mail message. The Justice Coalition helped arrange for the message to be put on CD, so Hicks could listen to it without keeping up with the phone payments.
• What does downtown Jacksonville want to be when it grows up? Cities like Orlando, Charlotte and Savannah are on the short list of cities that the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission uses as benchmarks to gauge Jacksonville’s development progress. JEDC Chairman Ceree Harden said those are the cities that Jacksonville most often competes with in corporate recruiting.
• The second phase of The Plaza (Berkman Plaza) may start soon. The 8.4 acres of property on East Bay Street between Liberty and Catherine is being rezoned from one Planned Unit Development to another.
• Parking may be a bit limited along Hendricks Avenue, but remember that the City is leasing a lot just off of LaSalle Street to help offset any concerns. It’s the one that got a nice bit of landscaping over the weekend.