• The Chamber’s Downtown Council is on the move, this time to the Aetna building on Friday mornings. The Council had been at the River City Brewing Company for almost 10 years but had to move this year when the restaurant decided to quit bringing in staff just for one group’s breakfast. The next stop was the University Club, but the only day available was Tuesday and that didn’t work out for the membership. So they’re back to Fridays at a new location and this week’s they’ll hear developer John Rood’s thoughts on the Jacksonville Journey.
• Starbucks will have free Wi-Fi soon as part of the company’s overhaul of the way it does business. The catch: you’ll have to buy a reloadable Starbucks card — at least $5 worth — and register online. That will give you two free hours daily as long as you use the card at least once a month. No time frame when area locations will be using the new deal.
• We’re losing a familiar Downtown name but not its business. FedEx Kinko’s will become FedEx Office.
• According to Council Auditor Kirk Sherman, the last meeting of the Council’s Ad Hoc Budget Committee is set for June 17. By then, he says, it’ll be time to move past the 2007-08 budget and start looking at the 2008-09 budget.
• Jacksonville came in at No. 4 in the Forbes.com “America’s Best Cities for the Outdoors,” rankings, tops in the state ahead of Tampa (No. 5) and Miami (No. 21). Rankings were based on factors such as the Web site’s recreation index, number of days with temperatures above 90 degrees and below 32 degrees, park land as a percentage of City land and others.
• Police and Fire Pension Fund Executive Director John Keane is not pleased with the results of the recently-wrapped up legislative sessions. According to Keane, the Legislature didn’t do anything to help the Fund expand its investment options. In fact, Keane says in his monthly newsletter, the investment options haven’t changed since 1999 when Gov. Jeb Bush approved the 10 percent international investment legislation.
• Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce Chair-elect Mike Hightower has selected Seattle for this year’s Chamber Leadership Trip. Hightower, an executive with Blue Cross Blue Shield, said Jacksonville resembles Seattle back in the late 1970s and early ‘80s. He said Seattle is a “community of young entrepreneurs who banded together in uncertain times and came back as a team.” Participants will leave Nov. 18 and tour the Starbucks headquarters as well as Boeing.
• Even non-profits are going green as HabiJax, the Jacksonville partner for Habitat for Habitat for Humanity, is one of the pilot affiliates for the organization’s “Partners in Sustainable Building” program. The goal is to provide funding and resources to make 5,000 homes built by HabiJax affiliates energy efficient and sustainable.
• It’s not easy to get either of the country’s two top officials to town. The offices of President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney recently sent notes of apology to the mayor’s office for not being able to attend an event. Apparently, security concerns have caused delays in mail delivery for the past several months at the White House and the offices did not receive the invitations until after the event.
• The Florida Association of Counties has awarded Mayor John Peyton a 2008 Advocacy Award for his “extraordinary leadership and commitment to the FAC mission, especially during the past legislative session.” The mayor doesn’t currently plan to attend the award ceremony at the Doral Resort and Spa in Miami June 25.
“Let the amelioration in our laws of property proceed from the concession of the rich, not from the grasping of the poor. Let us understand that the equitable rule is, that no one should take more than his share, let him be ever so rich.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson, U.S. essayist, poet and philosopher