• Police and Fire Pension Fund Administrator John Keane expects the Fund’s redevelopment deal for the Laura Street Trio to be well received at tonight’s City Council meeting. Keane worked last week to calm Council fears that the Fund might quickly resell the property a la Berkman Plaza developer DB Holdings. But Keane said the Fund has “no intention at all” to sell the buildings. And if the Fund receives an incredible offer that it can’t refuse? “If we were to get a $20 million offer, it’s not like we’d be running off to Atlanta with the money,” said Keane. “It would go to pay benefits and to keep the cost of the City’s annual contribution down.”
• As the Laura Street Trio deal churns through the Council, consideration of the JEDC’s Public Investment Policy (once known as incentives) has stalled a bit. The Council deferred the policy from committees last week after Council President Kevin Hyde requested a workshop on it.
• The owners of the D-town Cafe on Adams Street are said to be mulling a switch to a convenience mart. That doesn’t thrill other proprietors in the area who fear the switch would attract more homeless people.
• New sign at the London Bridge: “Beauty is in the eye of the Beerholder.” “Isn’t it true?” said co-owner Virginia Readion, who bought the sign at a flea market over the weekend.
• Florida Trend Magazine is notifying winners of its 2006 Florida Legal Elite. The list is a peer reviewed process that, according to the Florida Trend, “results in a select group comprising the top 2 percent of lawyers practicing in Florida.” We know of one such Jacksonville attorney, but can’t reveal their name. The list isn’t made public until July.
• Criminal defense attorney Hank Coxe has become somewhat of a connoisseur of legal advertisements from around the country. Florida is among the toughest regulators of ad content for lawyers, so it’s not surprising that Coxe gives out-of-state firms the most credit for, um, creativity. Both of his favorites come from San Francisco. One was a criminal defense firm advertising a 99 percent acquittal rate. “They must be very talented,” Coxe observed. Another was a firm with seven names on the company letterhead that advertised a unique specialty. “They specialize in representing husbands in a second marriage who continue to be harassed by their first wife,” he said.
• Pretty easy to see where City Council member Suzanne Jenkins falls regarding the Landing. There’s a sign at the riverfront mall urging folks to attend her town hall meeting March 6 at City Hall during which she’ll field questions and suggestions about the future of downtown.
• Been down Beach Boulevard lately? Three big parcels of land have been clear-cut in the Beach/Hodges Boulevard area. Two for residential developments and one for a mall.
• Clarification. In a City Note Monday about the Scrabble Soiree. We said that spellers will be able to use words forward, diagonally or down. Not true. Only across or down in Scrabble.