• At Monday’s City Council Finance committee meeting (which happened to fall on Halloween), vice chair Lad Daniels poked a little fun at Council member Warren Alvarez when he asked if Alvarez was going trick-or-treating Monday night. “I already did,” replied Alvarez, “and you were the trick.”
• Fifty-five members of the State Attorney’s Office sent Mayor John Peyton and the entire City Council a signed petition protesting the parking rate increase at the Yates Building garage and courthouse parking lot. The petition says the office expected an increase, but not a 150 percent increase.
• City Council member Glorious Johnson has withdrawn her legislation that would have limited the number of assistant management improvement officers to 20. The bill also would have required that each AMI be appointed by the mayor and approved by City Council.
• The new Florida Trend magazine is out and this month’s lists feature the state’s colleges and universities. The University of North Florida is the seventh-biggest with an enrollment of 14,641. The University of Florida is tops with 48,560 students. Interestingly, the University of Central Florida is second with 42,837 students.
• Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner John Swofford will be in town Nov. 14 for the joint Jacksonville Quarterback Club/Gator Bowl Committee meeting at the Terrace Club at Alltel Stadium.
• City Council member Daniel Davis has asked Council President Kevin Hyde to consider assigning JSO Detective Joseph Quinn to the Council on a full-time basis. Davis believes the “current security measures in place at the City Council office and meetings provide little protection to our staff.”
• Children’s Home Society of Florida announced last week that Alison Lee and Russell Glasheen have joined its board of directors.
• Local celebrity and supermodel Kim Alexis is on a new reality TV show on VH1. The show called “But Can They Sing?” aired Monday night at 10 p.m. Alexis, wife of Ron Duguay, Jacksonville Barracudas head coach, will compete against eight other celebrities who are all showing off their singing abilities. The public has the chance to vote for its favorite celebrity.
• Next time you’re out grocery shopping, add a few more items to your shopping cart for daniel Kids. The daniel Kids Agency, a nonprofit organization, is seeking Thanksgiving baskets for more than 400 families on the First Coast. The baskets need to be donated to the agency by Nov. 10. For more information call 296-1055, ext. 1026.
• U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez is the guest speaker at the First Coast Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s 10th Annual Achieving the Dream scholarship luncheon next Friday at the University Center at the University of North Florida.