by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
Fifty of the brightest legal minds in the state were in Ponte Vedra late last week for the second meeting of The Florida Bar’s Board of Governors. Hosted by Bar President Hank Coxe, the two-day meetings consisted of committee meetings on Thursday and a meeting of the full Board Friday complete with several local elected officials and a 33-item agenda.
“We meet every other month,” said Coxe, a trail lawyer with the law firm of Bedell Dittmar DeVault Pillans & Coxe. “Our first meeting was in Orlando and the next is in Miami. After that, we are in Tallahassee, Tampa and Key West. The intent is to move around the state.”
The meetings were held at the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club and many of the Bar’s administrative staff were also on hand, including executive director John Harkness.
“I help put the agenda together and make sure everyone is where they are supposed to be,” said Harkness.
Mayor John Peyton was the guest speaker Friday and gave everyone a quick lesson in “Jacksonville 101”, running through a litany of things including Consolidation and how it has affected modern-day Jacksonville, the Better Jacksonville Plan, the public investment in the St. Johns River and publicly-owned land and the local economy.
“How we live is what will drive our economy,” said Peyton, whose family owns the Inn & Club. Peyton listed a business-friendly environment, emphasis on education — especially Rally!Jacksonville, his early literacy initiative — quality workforce and thriving, growing economy as assets to a community of nearly one million. “By the end of the year, we will have enrolled 24,000 4 year-olds into the Mayor’s Book Club.”
Peyton also pointed at the Jacksonville Jaguars, landing the Super Bowl and the Better Jacksonville Plan as catalysts for both the local economy and putting Jacksonville on the national map.
“Attracting an NFL team against all odds was a coup for us and we exceeded expectations when we hosted the Super Bowl,” said Peyton. “The Better Jacksonville Plan is an investment in our infrastructure that helped build roads and other key assets including a new ball park, library and arena. The new County Courthouse will be crown jewel and it should be completed by 2010.”
Other notes from the meeting:
• Coxe was delighted to find a seat at his podium Friday morning. “I’ve got a chair this time. Last time, I had to stand for seven hours.”
• The Board of Governors is actually comprised of 52 members, two of which are non-voting, non-attorneys. This year they are Chuck Badger, a retired educator from Jacksonville, and Blair Culpepper, a banker from Winter Park. “They are here for balance,” said Jake Schickel. “They bring us the non-lawyer perspective on the world. They always make the comment that we are harder on lawyers than they would be.”
• Speaking of Culpepper, he proudly announced that after a two-year battle with colon cancer, he was recently pronounced cancer-free by his doctors. “I am pain-free and symptom-free,” he said. “A simple colonoscopy found the cancer. The worst part was drinking the liquid.”
• Board member Ross Goodman has been elected to Circuit Judge in Pensacola. Goodman is a board certified attorney in civil trail and business litigation.
• Grier Wells gave the invocation and noted the weather was much worse last time the Board was in the Jacksonville area thanks to Hurricane Charlie which passed through Florida two years ago in early August. The Category 5 storm had 150 mph winds when it came ashore in Southwestern Florida. It crossed the state and eventually entered the Atlantic Ocean just south of St. Augustine, which created high winds and lots of rain in the Jacksonville area.
• Peyton said he’s known Coxe a long time and called him one of the most respected lawyers in Northeast Florida. “He’s so good that most don’t want to admit they know him because that means something is terribly wrong,” said Peyton.