• Legislation is being drafted by City Council to honor retiring BellSouth executive Jim McCollum. In addition to his professional exposure around town, McCollum is on several boards and commissions and is very active in the community.
• It won’t be all beer drinking and music at Saturday’s Dancin’ in the Streets festival at the beach. The local Republican Party will have a manned booth from 11 a.m. until dusk.
• Five of the City’s biggest charitable organizations are getting together for the first “Our Family Block Party.” The Clara White Mission, City Rescue Mission, I.M. Sulzbacher Center for the Homeless, Salvation Army and the Trinity Rescue Mission will gather in Hemming Plaza June 15 from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. to help create more community awareness about the organizations and the services they provide.
• If city management isn’t the way to go, then maybe sex offender management has a stronger appeal. Mayor John Peyton and city officers were invited to improve their sex offender management at the 2006 National Conference on Sex Offender Registration & Management in Arlington, Va. The conference is June 19-20 and targets law enforcement officers, corrections agencies and victim services to learn sex offender management, treatment and response through a multi-agency collaboration. And if participants register for the two-day event by May 19, they receive $200 off tuition.
• Employees at the Hyatt get a pretty nice perk. They stay for free at Hyatt hotels across the country.
• Jacksonville has been tabbed to participate in an economic diversification study by one of the top economic development analysis firms in the country. The state will pay for Austin, Texas firm Angelou Economics to study Jacksonville’s new economic opportunities resulting from recent additions to local military bases. Angelou is seeking to meet this week with Mayor John Peyton and JEDC head Ron Barton.
The new Downtown This Week is out and the cover story is about the Jacksonville Suns and how the team ended up in Jacksonville. The magazine is free and available all over Downtown.