• Due to the expected large turnout for Rep. Tillie Fowler’s funeral Friday, officials considered moving the ceremony to St. John’s Cathedral downtown rather than the Fowler’s home church, St. Mark’s Episcopal in Ortega. The Cathedral‘s main sanctuary can hold about 800 while St. Mark’s tops out at around 450, but the family chose to stay at home.
• On the mend: Mayor’s office receptionist Alice Newman. She had surgery on her wrist and will be in the cast for a few weeks.
• Plans for a hot dog restaurant on Broad Street are dead for the moment. A partnership called The German Group — retired police officers, we hear — arranged to buy a building but backed out due to the delays in deciding about the courthouse.
• Home sales continue to boom here. They were up 16 percent in January, more than any other major Florida market except Naples/Fort Myers.
• The battle of words over the old Fuller Warren Bridge continues. The DOT says it hasn’t put a price tag on the bridge’s removal and that the $2 million being bandied about City Council may not be an accurate figure. The next confrontation may come this morning when the bridge/pier is on the Waterways Commission agenda.
• The National Football League schedule won’t appear for a month or so and City officials may face a tough two days if the Jaguars end their season at home. The NFL‘s last regular-season games are on Jan. 1, the day before the Toyota Gator Bowl.
• Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings will be among those opening the new Women’s Business Center on Friday. It’s at the Chamber’s Small Business Center in the Gateway Mall.
• The City’s Information Technology Division has received $75,000 in equipment from IBM and another donor who wished to remain anonymous. It’s for the Brewer Early Learning Research and Development Center and includes six IBM Little Tike Young Explorer computers, one for each classroom, and 49 personal computers that will be temporarily issued to parents of children who attend the center.
• Speaking of the Children’s Commission, in a recent article we mentioned they provide services to 10,000 children here in town. They actually work with more than 30,000.
• The tsunami relief fund-raiser being coordinated by three local Asian-American professional societies is being held on Friday. Members of the Jacksonville Asian-American Bar Association, the Mayor’s Asian-American Advisory Board and the First Coast Asian Chamber of Commerce are sponsoring the event and all proceeds will got to the American Red Cross’s tsunami relief fund.
• The Sports and Entertainment Board starts its Friday baseball program this week. They’ve arranged to have high schools play in the Baseball Grounds on each Friday this month and this week’s it’s Sandalwood vs. First Coast.
• One of Jacksonville’s best-known homebuilding names is gone. Richard Dostie, which merged with the big national builder Toll Brothers a few years ago, went by the name Richard R. Dostie, a Toll Brothers Company. They’ve now dropped Dostie’s name. He’s still an exec with the company.