• Early voting for the Jan. 29 ballot including the presidential preference primary election and the property tax reform referendum will begin Monday. In addition to the Supervisor of Elections Office at 105 E. Monroe St. and the branch office at Gateway Mall, anyone registered to vote in Duval County may also cast their ballot prior to Election Day at any public library. The sites will be open from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri. and 1-5 p.m. Sat. and Sun. through Jan. 27. For more information, visit www.duvalelections.com.
• State Rep. Dick Kravitz is asking the City Council to resolve the dispute between the City and the Clerk of the Court before it has to be taken up by the Duval Delegation. The mayor’s office reached an agreement with the Clerk of the Court Jim Fuller over several IT issues, including who has dibs on millions of dollars in state funding, but the agreement never made it out of the City Council’s Finance Committee. The other option is for the Duval Delegation to introduce a J-Bill to amend the City’s charter at the Delegation’s Jan. 18 meeting. “It would be an extraordinary measure to use the J-Bill process to resolve a dispute better reconciled at the local level,” Kravitz wrote in a letter to Council President Daniel Davis. “If (the memorandum of understanding) is passed by the Jacksonville City Council, I will gladly withdraw J-2 in support of this compromise.”
• Robert Wood, dean of continuing education at University of North Florida, wants people to attend his next seminar to ensure that more seminars follow. Glenn Shepard is scheduled to lead a seminar based on his book, “How to Manage Problem Employees,” on Feb. 6. In a letter to Mayor John Peyton, Wood asks the mayor to “send at least one of your employees to this event... We need a good turnout so that we can get more nationally known speakers to add Jacksonville to their tour schedule.” Wood continues to say that executives recently paid $1,295 to hear Shepard speak at a forum in Chicago. As a Chamber member, Peyton’s cost for the Jacksonville event would be $149.
• A concert is being held at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 14 at St. Paul’s By-the-Sea Church in Jacksonville Beach to benefit the Health and Welfare Fund for the musicians of the Jacksonville Symphony Players’ Association. The concert will feature excerpts from Handel’s “Water Music,” Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” and Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.” For more information, visit www.jsomusicians.org.
• Bagging it no more: The City will install new permanent signs on parking meter poles along Downtown streets to notify drivers that parking is prohibited at the meters when the streets are redirected to handle traffic from football games or other special events. The signs will eliminate the need for police officers to place “No Parking” bags over meters the day before a special event. The change will also allow parking at the meters until 2 a.m. the night before events.
“Technology represents intelligence systematically applied to the problem of the body. It functions to amplify and surpass the organic limits of the body; it compensates for the body’s fragility and vulnerability.”
– Shoshana Zuboff, U.S. social scientist.