Marco Rubio made a major splash in Jacksonville Beach last Wednesday, while Governor Charlie Crist’s events in Jacksonville on Friday reportedly lacked the kind of energy and attendance you might expect of a sitting Governor campaigning for U.S. Senate.  
And based on two recent polls, Mr. Rubio has a lot to smile about.
I was able to [...]

Saturday morning I found myself at Cecil Community Center in the Equestrian Center complex where about 75 people had gathered for the purpose of learning about the city budget, and letting department heads know what they think is or isn’t important.
It was a very educational two hours.
I had been asked by JCCI to come and [...]

The formation of the Jacksonville Civic Council from the remnants of the “shadowy” “non-group” again brings into focus the question “what kind of city do we want to have?”  
But as they emerge from the shadows, they do so with a survey that tells us nothing much new.
The JCC is primarily comprised of the city’s behind-the-scenes power brokers, names those [...]

Now, I realize that there may be those of you who are regular readers of this column who will be clicking over to Andy Rooney when you see the headline, but something really cool happened Sunday, and it’s unfortunate (to me) that more people don’t care.
America is back in possession of The America’s Cup.
“The what?”, I [...]

Mayor Peyton and City Council President Richard Clark have begun the process recommended by JCCI to get the public more involved in the budget process. They’ve established a website and will be holding a series of town hall meetings in an effort to get public input into the city budget long before the document is [...]

In the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) the Navy said a nuclear aircraft carrier will be coming to Naval Station Mayport. Once again, unless she is on deployment, those of us lucky enough to travel past the carrier basin on our way to the Atlantic ocean will have the pride of seeing an aircraft carrier tied [...]

The incoming speaker of the Florida House and president of the Florida Senate held a summit in Orlando at the end of last week to get a feeling from the Florida business community about how to improve on the states double-digit unemployment figures.
They heard a lot of ideas, and perhaps the best of them was [...]

Laura Street, the Southbank, Metropolitan Park, Friendship Fountain. In the last month or so, the Peyton administration has announced proposals for each of these areas as part of an ongoing effort to revitalize downtown.
The mayor has introduced legislation to spend $23 million of three of the projects, as was reported earlier this week in “The [...]

Among the items that will appear on the ballot in November is Amendment 4, also known as the Hometown Democracy Amendment to the Florida Constitution. Amendment 4 is a bad idea.
On its face, it might sound like a good thing, and that’s about as far as its supporters hope you’ll go. Basically, any change in [...]

It is amazing to think that we have reached the end of the first decade of the 21st century. It seems like it was not so long ago that we were all scrambling to prevent the Y2K disaster, and a tip of the cap to those IT professionals who made sure that our technology didn’t [...]