• According to a document released by the Florida Department of Revenue, the recommended salaries for our area’s constitutional officers for the next fiscal year have been determined. Clerk of the Court Jim Fuller, Property Appraiser Jim Overton and Tax Collector Mike Hogan will all make $140,838 (that’s also the salary of the school superintendent, but Duval County hasn’t selected a permanent superintendent). Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland will make $122,236 while Sheriff John Rutherford will make $149,137. The state’s highest salaries are in Miami-Dade County.
• Harden & Associates, as well as Jacksonville Economic Development Commission Chairman Ceree Harden, will be honored at this year’s National Multiple Sclerosis Society North Florida Chapter Dinner of Champions. It’s Oct. 5 at the Omni and it’s not cheap. Individual seats are $200 and platinum patron tables are $20,000.
• Preston Haskell’s love of abstract expressionist art is well known. He has one of the largest private collections in the country and even decorates the offices at the Haskell Company with original works. But a decoration in one office, a poster board guitar with a peace symbol, was a little too abstract for Haskell. “I’ve been meaning to ask him what in the hell that thing is,” he said. It turned out the guitar was a prop from a Jerry Garcia Halloween costume.
• Derrick Smith has been tabbed as the new chair of the Jacksonville Urban League. Smith is vice president of Emerging Markets at CSX.
• Another big political fund-raiser Wednesday night. This one’s for gubernatorial candidate Charlie Christ at Epping Forest Yacht Club. It’s being chaired by Dr. Gasper and Irene Lazzara and Dr. Javier and Mary Garcia.
• The City Council Growth Management Committee and Duval County Legislative Delegation will hold a joint meeting on transportation, education and growth management issues next Wednesday at City Hall. Florida Department of Transportation urban engineer James Bennett will be on hand to answer questions at the public meeting.
• A $75,000 repair job is in the works for Friendship Fountain. Seems two of the fountain’s three pumps no longer work.
• The trial run of fees to use the Cecil Field gym and fitness center is over and a City ordinance will make the fees permanent. The fees were $2 per person per visit, $120 a year for Duval County residents and $150 for non-residents. The Parks, Recreation and Entertainment Department had decided the fees raised enough revenue to ask Council to make them permanent.