• Work starts today on the Trout River Bridge over I-95 and it will be well into 2007 before it’s finished. The bridge will be replaced and I-95 will be widened from two to three lanes each way for 2.7 miles from Lem Turner Road to Heckscher Drive. The new bridge will be west of the existing structure and will be 557 feet longer than the existing bridge, which is 1,835 feet long. It’s a $53.4 million project.
• Tillie Fowler’s funeral Friday was the largest ever at the venerable St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Ortega. About 1,200 attended and it’s believed the next highest was the funeral of Charter executive Jack Donnell around 1980 (former President Gerald Ford attended) closely followed by the ceremonies of railroad president Prime Osborn and newspaper publisher J.J. Daniel.
• Advocates of turning the wreckage of the old Fuller Warren Bridge into a public promenade or fishing pier say one reason to consider their plan is to preserve public access to the river. If the riverfront land isn’t public it’s sure to become private, they told the Jacksonville Waterways Commission.
• No matter what the City decides to do with the old Fuller Warren, Council member Art Graham wants to make sure the wreckage is safe for boaters. Graham asked Public Works Director Alan Mosley to investigate lighting what’s left of the bridge after a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office boat on patrol during Super Bowl week struck part of the old bridge.
• The City’s Property Safety Division moved out of City Hall to the Southbank’s Midtown Centre office park on Art Museum Drive. The move isn’t expected to affect operations. The Division takes complaints about unsafe houses or poorly maintained property and will still receive calls at
630-CITY. Division Chief Derek Igou said his office is moving for more space and more parking,
which is becoming a familiar reason for moves to
the Southbank.
• Of all the small minority businesses awarded City contracts in the first fiscal quarter of 2005, women-owned businesses took home the largest share of City money at more than $3 million, about 37 percent of the total. Black-owned businesses were next with 35 percent followed by Hispanic-owned at 7 percent, Native American-owned at 6 percent and Asian-owned with 3 percent.
• The national Engineers Week wrapped up last week at the Radisson Riverwalk Hotel. Local engineer Joe Varone, the The Haskell Company’s chief engineer, was named Jacksonville Engineer of the Year at the closing banquet. E-week was founded in 1951 by the National Society of Professional Engineers to raise public awareness of engineering contributions to quality of life. Varone is the third Haskell engineer to win the award, following Gary Wingfield in 1979 and Ron Vallort in 1994.
• College basketball’s March Madness has yet to tip off this year but the Jacksonville University Athletic Department is already hawking tickets to the first and second rounds of next year’s tournament. JU will host the games March 16 and 18, 2006 at the Veterans Memorial Arena. JU boosters get first crack at tickets, which cost $162 per for all six games. Tickets go on sale to the general public in about a month.
• Our “vintage” lawyers gather March 24 for their quarterly luncheon at the usual site: the Piccadilly at Regency Mall.