• City Council member Suzanne Jenkins will chair a Hemming Plaza design review meeting March 31 at 11 a.m. in Committee Room A at City Hall. All interested parties are invited to attend. Among the proposals being considered is to eliminate the east fountain to make the Plaza more pedestrian-friendly and create more room for special events at JMOMA and the Main Library.
• Our publisher, Jim Bailey, is the new Commodore at Epping Forest Yacht Club. He’ll have the job for a year.
• Harold Fine, owner of Discount Pro Wear at the Landing, said he’s expecting to be fully stocked with Florida Gators and LSU Final Four gear by today. “I’m just waiting for the brown truck to arrive,” said Fine. He added that a couple of people had come to the store looking for George Mason T-shirts. “I asked them if they even knew where George Mason was – and they didn’t,” said Fine.
• Speaking of the store, Fine said he’s moving into his new, larger space by the end of this week. He’s consolidating Discount Pro Wear and Destination Jacksonville (the corner store that was originally Banana Republic) into the new space. “It’s going to be like Christmas,” he said. “I’m sure we’re going to find stuff we haven’t seen for years.”
• Here’s one you might want your boss to attend: a seminar on “Effective Meetings.” Jacksonville Community Council Inc. has it on April 10.
• The Jaguars’ preseason schedule includes games at Alltel Stadium with Tampa Bay and Carolina. Tampa Bay will be here on Saturday, Aug. 26 for a national TV game at 8 p.m. and Carolina will be here the previous week with a day and time to be decided. Road games are at Miami for the opener and Atlanta for the finale before the regular season opener on Sept. 10 against Dallas here.
• Finally found something that went awry with the golf tournament. The parking lot was subdivided Disney-like using the names of past winners so you’d remember how to find your car. Many of the signs, however, were taken down while fans were still at the course, so the lot had grumbling folks wandering about looking for their cars.
• You have until Friday to vote for the top Law Week posters, which were produced this year by 5th graders from three local elementary schools. The five finalists are on display in the lobby of the County Courthouse. Three winners will be chosen and they’ll get books and art supplies at Monday’s Jacksonville Bar Association luncheon at the Hyatt.
• Just so you’ll know: it costs a buck per page to have a document copied at the County Courthouse. State regulation, we are told.
• The annual Springing the Blues festival is this weekend in Jacksonville Beach and it comes with a twist: a two-day surf contest at the Jax Beach pier.
• The next big Wal-Mart debate is sure to take place in Neptune Beach, where Wal-Mart officials want to put a superstore in the strip mall that used to house Food Lion and Big Lots. Neptune Beach officials deny the land has been sold or that formal negotiations have even taken place. One Neptune Beach Council member, Eric Pardee, is in favor of the store, but residents are forming groups to protest the store.
• Not everyone will be rooting for Florida’s basketball team in this weekend’s Final Four basketball championship. They’ll be playing George Mason and grads include Sports and Entertainment Board director Mike Sullivan, who has a graduate degree from the Virginia school, and Sam Pascoe, the rector of Grace Anglican Church in Orange Park, who gave his announcements last Sunday while wearing a George Mason cap.