• U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown is the scheduled speaker at Tuesday’s meeting of the Government Affairs Committee of the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce. It’s at 8 a.m. in the Hadlow Board room.
• The Jacksonville Symphony Association is looking for a new lease on its space in their Water Street offices and they are asking for the new lease to run through June of next year.
• If you buy a book this weekend at any Barnes & Noble location in Jacksonville or St. Augustine – and present a special voucher – a portion of the sale will be donated to the Jacksonville Public Library Foundation’s annual “Much Ado About Books” festival that will be held April 21. The vouchers can be downloaded at www.muchadoaboutbooks.com.
• The Boys & Girls Club of Northeast Florida will hold the 2nd Annual Beaches Broadway Bash April 19 from 6-9:30 p.m. at the Atlantic Theatres at Atlantic Beach. It is a social event to benefit the club’s Renovation Project and will feature gourmet food and entertainment, including a vaudeville-style performance by Bella Voce. Tickets are available for a donation of $50 per person. For more information, call 396-4435.
• The MaliVai Washington Kids Foundation is making its presence felt on the local high school tennis scene. Eleven kids from the Foundation are on teams: one at Paxon, two at Wolfson and eight at Lee.
• JTA is hosting the second round of public meetings to inform the public about the progress of the environmental assessment and preliminary design study for the bus rapid transit system Downtown. There are two open meetings set for April 19 at the Main Library — 11 a.m.-1 p.m. and 4-6 p.m. in multipurpose room 3.
• To date, 76 people have applied for Mike Sullivan’s old job as head of the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission’s Sports Board. Among them are Mike Bouda and Chris Sutton of the City — both of whom used to work for Sullivan — former Soil and Water Commission member Rahman Johnson (who’s a consultant in Philadelphia these days) and former University of Florida linebacker Ephesians Bartley.
• The 2006-07 salaries for City Council members have been set. Council members will get $44,579 while the Council president will get $59,439. Where does this salary come from? A section of the City’s Ordinance Code states Council members “shall receive an annual salary equal to one-half of the salary allowed for a member of the Board of County Commissioners in a county with a population equal to that of Duval County.” The Council president’s salary is that amount plus an additional one-third.
• Musical office space: The Jacksonville Economic Development Commission is vacating its space at the City Hall Annex and moving to the Police and Fire Pension Fund Building on Adams Street on or about April 20. The JEDC is moving into space made available when the Housing and Neighborhoods Department relocated to the Ed Ball Building.
“The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce.”
– Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.