• At tonight’s meeting, City Council will honor Bill White for his years of service as Public Defender for the Fourth Judicial Circuit. Also, Council will honor UNF baseball coach Dusty Rhodes for being inducted into the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
• Attorney Leslie Goller was feeling generous Wednesday as she offered two tickets to see the Ritz Chamber Players to anyone at the Ethics Legislative Subcommittee meeting. Goller has filed complaints in the past against City Council members who failed to report tickets that members received as gifts. She promised not to file a complaint if someone could use the tickets that she could not.
• “NCAA Coaches’ Contracts: Diversity and Negotiating Value in the 21st Century” is the title of the Sports Law Symposium being held by Florida Coastal School of Law Friday. Rick Karcher director of FCSL Center for Law and Sports will moderate one of the two panel discussions that will feature athletic directors from Florida State and Clemson Universities. The program begins at 10:30 a.m. and will end at 2:30 p.m. It is free to the public and CLE credits have been applied for.
• This year’s “Dancin in the Streets” festival is set for May 16. It’s at the foot of Atlantic Boulevard and put on by the restaurants and merchants in the Town Center area of Atlantic Beach and Neptune Beach.
• Unless the other five contestants in this year’s Learn to Read “Kiss the Pig” contest make up a lot of ground, it’ll be JSO Chief David Stevens puckering up May 3 at the Baseball Grounds. As of late last week, Stevens had 2,801 votes while none of the other five had any votes.
• Jacksonville Community Council Inc. has set a series of brown bag lunch and learns over the next couple of months. Wednesday the topic is preventative health, May 21 it’s early learning and June 25 they’ll cover STDs and HIV. All get underway at noon at the JCCI offices on Atlantic Boulevard.
• It’s good to be mayor, especially when The Players Championship rolls around. This year, Mayor John Peyton gets two personalized engraved clubhouse badges and a week-long VIP parking pass.
• Speaking of Peyton, he’s at the Tiger Bay (formerly Bull Short) luncheon Friday where he and Council member Jack Webb will discuss the Trail Ridge Landfill issue.
• Here’s something you’ve probably never seen before: As part of the “Jax Reads The Call of the Wild” program, the Main Library will host a “dogless sled race” Saturday at 2 p.m. on Laura Street between Duval and Monroe streets. Four-member human-powered teams and their homemade wheeled contraptions will compete for fastest sled, best decorated sled and best “Call of the Wild” costumes.
• Also at the Main Library, a new collection of self-guided tours sponsored by The Friends of the Jacksonville Public Library is available for cell phone users. Topics covered range from the photography collection located on the Conference Level all the way to the Ansbacher Map Collection on the 4th floor. Complete details, access numbers and prompt codes are available at the information desk. No charge for the audio tours but standard cell phone charges do apply.
• The Jacksonville Jaguars host the 15th Annual Bud Light Draft Party presented by PRI at 3 p.m. April 25 at the Landing. Those attending the Draft Party will have the opportunity to watch the NFL draft live on the Landing’s video board in the courtyard and many of the restaurants will also be showing the draft and offering food and drink specials. Fans will be also able to meet Jaguars players and get autographs, as well as see a performance by the 2009 D-Line, the introduction and performance by the 2009 ROAR of the Jaguars Cheerleaders, and an appearance by team mascot Jaxson de Ville. Admission is free. For more information, visit www.jaguars.com.