• The audience favorite awards presented each year by Jacksonville’s “48 Hour Film Project” have been renamed the “Don Davis Audience Choice Awards” in recognition of the late state legislator’s support of the motion picture industry in Florida. Screening of and voting for this year’s films (each produced including script writing and soundtrack in less than 48 hours) will be held May 6-7 at the Florida Theatre, where tickets are now available at the box office.
• It’s a “fifth week” for City Council, that means no full meeting and no committee meetings. Rules and Finance meet Monday.
• The CSX Charity Train set a new record this year. After raising more than $1 million for local causes since its inaugural trip in 2001, the excursion raised $305,000 on its 2008 journey. Donors boarded 15 historic passenger cars at the Prime Osborn Center then dined and danced their way to Nahunta, Ga. and back. All proceeds from ticket sales will be distributed to the American Heart Association, Juvenile Diabetes Research Association, daniel, Angelwood and Volunteers in Medicine.
• According to the latest quarterly report from the City’s Public Works Department, the Bay Street Town Center Phase II project design portion is 45 percent complete. A construction date hasn’t been set, but bids are expected to go out in October.
• The City’s Metropolitan Park Marina is being dredged and is closed to boaters and anglers. The project to remove approximately 7,854 cubic yards of the river bottom at a cost of $477,440 is expected to be completed in two months at which time the facility will reopen.
• The partnership between Downtown Vision, Inc. and Catholic Charities to clean up the urban core removed 10,000 pounds of litter and 500 graffiti tags in the past year. Based on that performance, DVI recently invested in orange vests and yellow trash cans for the “Downtown Clean Team.” If you or your office would like to participate in a Downtown Clean Up Day, call DVI Director of District Services Amy Harrell at 634-0303, ext. 224.
• Speaking of DVI, the hours of operation for the Downtown Ambassadors – the people in the bright orange clothes and pith helmets – have changed. They are now on the streets Monday and Tuesday from 7 am.-7 p.m., Wednesday and Thursday from 7 a.m.-9 p.m., Friday from 7 a.m.-11 p.m. and Sunday from 9 a.m.-6 p.m. If you would like to have an Ambassador walk you to your Downtown destination, call the shift supervisor at 465-7980.
• World of Nations is this weekend at Metropolitan Park. In addition to plenty of food and music, the three-day festival includes a naturalization ceremony, the parade of flags and a Friday showing of Oscar-winner “Ratatouille.”
• Correction. In a City Note Monday about Bruce Bullock Jr. joining the Office of General Counsel, we ran a photo of Bruce Bullock Sr. Bullock Sr. and Jr. and their firm were also misidentified in a photo on page 3 Monday.
“A debate before 70 million people is in fact a distorting glass, a fun-house mirror in which wrinkles look like canyons and hesitation like an attack of amnesia.”
– Peter Goldman, on the debate between presidential candidates Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale