• Plans are in the works to rename District 2 Regional Park to Ed Austin Regional Park after the former mayor. The measure takes Council approval because the ordinance goes against another ordinance that prohibits the naming of a public facility after a living person. You may remember that park when it was the Dunes golf course. The ceremony is set for May 14.
• Taylor Engineering, Inc. has added Chandy John as a senior engineer in the company’s Jacksonville office. John is joining the engineering firm after seven years with the St. Johns River Water Management District.
• The end of a story in Monday’s Daily Record was incomplete. In the story. Chief Judge Donald Moran said that the new courthouse should not have been in the Better Jacksonville Plan, and at the end of the story he spoke of the building’s appearance. The story should have concluded with these words “Moran said the County’s judiciary doesn’t care what the building looks like, so long as it is functional. ‘With columns, without columns, that’s the mayor’s and the City Council’s business. They can build it Plain Jane and we won’t care so long as it’s durable, functional and safe and secure,’ he said.”
• The Tom Coughlin Jay Fund raised more than $48,000 during its Wine Tasting Gala two weeks ago. That money will support local families with children battling leukemia and cancer.
• After being dyed green for St. Patrick’s Day and purple for Easter, the fountain at the Jacksonville Landing has returned to normal. Landing maintenance staff bleached the water back to white early Monday.
• Speaking of the Landing, its proposed new parking garage won’t be built any time soon and it appears at least one business there is taking parking matters into its own hands. New night spot Twisted Martini is said to be looking into establishing a valet service, working with Landing management to find a lot where it could park cars during peak business hours.
• Organizers from Cecil Equestrian Center, including former City Council member Alberta Hipps, are organizing an upcoming special event and they’ll likely be asking for a grant from the Jacksonville Tourist Development Commission to help put it on. Details regarding the event are sketchy, but Hipps and others will meet with TDC staff this week to discuss a grant application. To make it before the TDC on May 19, that application must be turned in no later than April 21.