• City Council member Stephen Joost won’t be around the last few days of April and the first week of May. He’ll be in Masan, South Korea on behalf of Jacksonville. Masan is one of several Sister Cities of Jacksonville all over the world.
• Several members of the Jacksonville Journey’s Funding Committee have agreed to serve on the subcommittee chair Tom Petway organized during Monday’s meeting. Howard Korman, Laurie Dubow, Chris Hand and Nina Waters will help Petway look for viable ways to fund the Journey’s $35 million worth of recommendations.
• The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office recently announced its employees of the year. Det. Jim Davis was named Police Officer of the Year, Hubert Hensley the Corrections Officer of the Year, Angela Fouraker the Civilian Employee of the Year, L. Jon McEwan the Volunteer/Reserve Officer of the Year, Sgt. Avelino Elegino the Police Supervisor of the Year and Sgt. Donna McWaters the Civilian/Corrections Supervisor of the Year. Also, Steve Halverson, president and CEO of The Haskell Company, was named the Citizen of the Year.
• Speaking of the Sheriff’s Office, spokesperson Ken Jefferson will soon be working up a sweat while washing down one of the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department’s ladder trucks. Jefferson and JFRD Public Information Officer Tom Francis made a wager on the outcome of the Guns N’ Hoses boxing event on March 15, when the firefighters collectively beat the police team in the annual charity event.
• The Dalton Agency is having an open house at its new space, 140 W. Monroe St. near Hemming Plaza. The party is 5:30–9 p.m. April 25 and is slated to feature live music, local artists, food from Downtown restaurants and the agency’s “soon-to-be legendary cocktail — the Daltini.”
• Fred Hoffmann, formerly executive assistant manager and senior food and beverage director at the Hyatt, has been transferred. He is now the general manager of the Hyatt Regency Key West Resort and Spa. At his send-off party, Hoffmann’s colleagues surprised him by showing up dressed in Tommy Bahama resort wear in honor of his new locale. Jacksonville General Manager Dan King said the 966-room hotel’s new food and beverage director is being transferred here from a Hyatt property in Austin, Texas and will take over the duties later this month.
“On the terrace for two in springtime France, all the world was printed on sprocketed strips of acetate that passed through a projector at the rate of 90 feet per minute, and hope and despair and beauty and death were carried around the city in flat, round, shining cans.”
– Irwin Shaw, referring to the Cannes Film Festival