• Florida Solicitor General Scott Makar will be in town Friday as the guest speaker at the Christian Legal Society luncheon. Makar, a former attorney with the Office of General Counsel, will talk about freedom of speech and religious liberties. The meeting is at the University Club at noon and it is open to all.
• The Sulzbacher Center is taking bids for alterations to its dormitories. The plan is to demolish and renovate some of the existing rooms, add rooms to the second floor and and add second floor bathrooms and showers.
• Speaking of bids, the Jacksonville Housing Authority is looking to replace the vinyl siding in five public housing locations: Anders, Blodgett Villas, Jacksonville Beach, Forest Meadows East and Forest Meadows West.
• Statistically, more than 130 million cell phones are retired each year in America and it’s estimated that 500,000 of them are sitting in desk drawers and forgotten. If you have upgraded your cell phone take the old one to Anne Teague Bail Bonds on Forsyth Street near the Florida Theatre. Collected phones are reprogrammed and then donated to senior citizens and victims of domestic abuse who would not otherwise have access to portable communication in an emergency.
• The City’s 18th annual Environmental Luncheon is set for April 3 at noon in the Main Library’s Conference Center. Tickets are $25.
• Benetta Standly is the new director of the northeast region for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida Foundation.
• There is still an opportunity to see the action for those who missed the annual “Guns and Hoses” charity boxing event between police and firefighters. Pictures can be seen at www.smugmug.com by typing David Stevens into the search field.
• According to the latest Florida Trend magazine, Jacksonville’s Police and Fire Pension is the most underfunded in the state of those in large cities. At 46 percent funded, the pension fund is well behind the next worst, which is Ft. Lauderdale’s police and fire (82 percent). The best funded in the state is Tallahassee’s general employee fund at 111 percent.
• You may have read the parent company of the Florida Times-Union is struggling, but according to 24/7 Wall St., there are at least 10 other papers in the country closer to folding or going 100 percent on line. They are: The Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Daily News, The Boston Globe, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Chicago Sun Times, The Detroit News, The New York Daily News, The Fort Worth Star Telegram and The Cleveland Plain Dealer.
• There’s been another every-month event added to Downtown’s schedule. The Landing will host “Yappy Hour,” an event open to leashed dogs of all breeds and their owners every third Sunday beginning this weekend. From 2-5 p.m. there will be live music in the courtyard and vendors will offer drink specials including the “Poodle Colada,” “Mutt-A-Rita” and “Bloodhound Mary.” Yappy Hour guests can also enter to win prizes ranging from $150 cash to pet store shopping sprees.
• The Jacksonville Orchid Show is March 21-22 from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Garden Club of Jacksonville on Riverside Avenue. Local growers and commercial suppliers will display their specimens and judges from the American Orchid Society will judge displays and individual orchid flowers. Admission is free. For details visit www.jaxorchidsociety.org.
• The Economic Roundtable of Jacksonville will present its final program of the season at a luncheon meeting March 31 at the Davis College of Business at Jacksonville University. Tommy Grimes, chairman of The Grimes Companies, will comment on the effects of fuel costs on the movement of cargo and the future of the logistics industry in North Florida. Tickets are $20 for Economic Roundtable members, $25 for guests. Registration will begin at 11:30 a.m. For tickets or information, call 256-7188 or e-mail [email protected].
• Wolfson Children’s Hospital Pediatric Pathologist Dr. Jeffrey Goldstein was installed as the 45th president of the Society for Pediatric Pathology at the organization’s annual meeting last week in Boston. He has practiced here since 1987 and also serves as pathology co-principal investigator for Children’s Oncology Group studies available through Nemours Children’s Clinic Jacksonville. Nearly 700 members of the society work in more than 60 children’s hospitals, university hospitals and community medical centers in the United States, Canada and around the world.