• Jacksonville Area Legal Aid recently received a $9,000 grant from the Jacksonville Jaguars Foundation to start JALACare — a pilot program designed to teach Duval County high school freshmen financial literacy and how to avoid predatory lending and debt.
• The law firm of Lewis, Longman & Walker has moved its Tallahassee office. The new location is 2600 Centennial Place, Suite 100. The firm’s Jacksonville office is in Riverplace Tower.
• Riverside/Avondale attorney Charles Johnston sent a letter to all 19 City Council members expressing his opposition to the City’s hiring of an Ethics Officer. Johnston believes that if quality people are hired and those people follow the City’s rules and regulations, “then the ethics will usually take care of itself.”
• Labor and employment firm Harper Gerlach is sponsoring four ADA Master Class seminars across the state within the next month. The Jacksonville seminar is set for Dec. 5 at the Crowne Plaza. For more information, call 296-7000.
• The date for the Duval County Legislative Delegation Organizational Meeting and General Legislative Hearing has been changed from Nov. 16 to Nov. 28 at 1 p.m. It will be held in the Council Chambers at City Hall. The purpose of the meeting is to elect a chairman and vice chairman. Following the election, public testimony on general issues, legislation and appropriations will be heard. If you wish to be placed on the agenda, contact Delegation Coordinator Susan Stewart at 630-1680 before Friday.
• Todd Roobin, chief of the Film and Television Office for the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission, was reappointed to the Florida Film and Entertainment Advisory Council by Gov. Charlie Crist. The 17-member council serves as an advisory board to the Office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development and to the Governor’s Office of Film and Entertainment and provides industry insight relating to developing, marketing, promoting and providing service to Florida’s entertainment industry.
• Speaking of Roobin, he has also accepted an invitation to join the Jacksonville & the Beaches Convention and Visitors Bureau Board of Directors. “Todd is a great asset in promoting Jacksonville as an ideal location for film and TV productions,” Mayor John Peyton wrote in a release. “I’m sure he will be a knowledgeable and energetic addition to the CVB as well.”
“Stripped of ethical rationalizations and philosophical pretensions, a crime is anything that a group in power chooses to prohibit.”
– Freda Adler, U.S. educator, author