• Assistant Public Defender Cynthia Hunold joined the Jacksonville Area Legal Aid board of directors, which oversees the operations of the 30-year-old agency dedicated to providing legal representation to low-income clients with civil legal problems. Jacksonville Area Legal Aid serves Duval, Clay, Nassau and St. Johns counties.
• Applications are being accepted for the judicial opening in the Fourth Circuit resulting from the death of Judge Jefferson Morrow. Gov. Rick Scott instructed the Fourth Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission to present him with a list of nominees for the vacancy. Applicants must deliver a completed application plus nine copies and one compact disk or flash drive containing a duplicate of the completed application in Adobe PDF format to Chair Wayne Alford at the Alford Law Group. To qualify for the vacancy, applicants must be members of The Florida Bar for the past five years, a resident of Duval County and a registered voter in Florida. The application deadline is 5 p.m. April 15 and applications can be found at www.floridabar.org.
• Jacksonville resident Tawnia Adams was appointed assistant vice president and small business specialist at Hancock Bank. She is based in Hancock Bank’s Baymeadows branch at 8195 Point Meadows Way.
• Those applying for the Fourth Judicial Circuit vacancy will be interviewed May 3-4 in the chambers of Chief Judge Donald Moran in Room 222 of the Duval County Courthouse.
• Isabelle Lopez recently joined Quintairos, Prieto, Wood & Boyer as a partner in the Jacksonville office. Her practice will focus on local government representation, contract and procurement disputes, real estate, land use and zoning litigation.
• There may have been plenty of distractions for the work force Thursday with the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament and St. Patrick’s Day, but Gov. Rick Scott had a full day planned to advance Florida’s business community. Scott was visiting Panama as the country works toward expanding the Panama Canal, which would allow larger cargo ships to pass through. Jacksonville Port Authority CEO Paul Anderson traveled with him.
• Port CEO Paul Anderson left for Panama Wednesday and returned Friday. He said the governor spoke to the president and vice president of Panama about his commitment for Florida to be “the shipping capital of the East Coast” and to prepare ports for the Panama Canal expansion. He stated the business is “Florida’s to lose and we are going to get it done.” “We were hosted by the Panama American Chamber of Commerce and I had the opportunity to introduce the regional president of MOL to Governor Scott,” said Anderson. “It’s clear that JaxPort will play a key role in Florida port strategy.” Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL) and its operating partner, TraPac, are using the new TraPac Container Terminal at Dames Point to load and unload containers ships sailing to and from ports in Asia.
• Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland said 43,074 voters, or 8.4 percent of eligible voters, cast a ballot either by voting early or by absentee. Early voting ended Sunday. The first election is tomorrow.