• The Jacksonville Port Authority is holding a “windshield tour” of its cruise terminal, MOL/TraPac Terminal and the Blount Island Marine Terminal July 25 for City Council members and their executive assistants. Lunch follows the tour.
• Speaking of Blount Island, there’s a change of command coming for the Marine Corps Support Facility on the island. Aug. 7, Col. Joseph Haviland will take over for Col. James Hooks.
• Shugar Shack is looking for help for its Landing kiosk. If interested, apply at the Adams Street store.
• Claudette Williams took over as president of Edward Waters College late last month and one of her first courses of action is to settle several liens the City has on property owned by the college. According to a spreadsheet Williams provided to Mayor John Peyton, the City has $126,237.08 worth of liens against the school.
• Speaking of Peyton, he recently donated 200 tickets to the zoo to the Pace Center for Girls.
• Tickets are still available for the Otis Smith Kids Foundation’s Big Cats for Kids Auction on July 10. The event is from 6-10 p.m. at the Morocco Shrine Center. Forty-one of the Big Cats that were on display around Jacksonville will be auctioned off. Tickets are $50 and include dinner from Outback Steakhouse, and dessert from Kilwin’s and Starbucks. To order tickets please call 880-6847 or send an e-mail to [email protected].
• The United Way has named the leadership for its board of trustees and directors for 2007-08. Kevin Twomey, owner of WildHorse Advisors and former president of the St. Joe Company, was named chairman of the board of trustees. The rest of the board consists of Barbara Drake (chair of the board of directors), Stephen Goldman (treasurer), Linda Larkin Smith, Ron Autrey, Marty Lanahan and Lynn Bertram.
• Florida Community College at Jacksonville is in the process of applying for authority to offer three baccalaureate programs. According to FCCJ President, Dr. Steven Wallace, the programs are in response to the “critical workforce needs expressed by local employers.” The programs would build on the school’s computer networking, nursing and organizational management programs. The programs also require state approval and Wallace is soliciting help from local business leaders and elected officials willing to write letters of support to the state.
“In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds.”
– Henry David Thoreau