Jacksonville, Florida | featured news

The photographer started by taking a few photos of Eveline Cheshire sitting quietly in a wheelchair, holding her brother’s poodle/terrier mix named Frank and, in honor of the family name, a stuffed Cheshire cat.
Michelle K. Smith then focused her lens on Cheshire, who turns 80 on Friday, flanked by brother Ed, 69, and his wife, Stephanie.
The photos, taken on a small patio near Woodland Grove Health and Rehabilitation Center, the Southside Jacksonville nursing home where the elder sibling lives, would be cherished family photos.

U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown wants supporters to help her pay the costs of an upcoming fraud trial by giving to a legal expense fund formerly used to defend her congressional district’s boundaries.
“I am fighting the Department of Justice, which has unlimited resources. They have smeared my good name. They are trying to take my freedom. I am asking for your help,” says a note carrying Brown’s signature on a website, corrinebrownlegalexpensetrust.org.

This weekend’s Pod Rods automotive blog links folks to a lot of fun videos that include a feature film’s wild cars, a sneak peek at the ex-Top Gear guys’ new show, a Maserati motorcycle, and Jay Leno’s latest garage car. And, oh yes, we Hoonigan.
Plus there’s a full calendar of events:
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The long route to the Jacksonville National Cemetery that winds through a rural part of town north of the International Airport is about to get a lot more direct if a plan by the Florida Department of Transportation is put into place.
Lannie Road is a dead end off Lem Turner Road that passes through about seven miles of farm land and happens to have a correctional facility, a church and the only national cemetery open to new internments in Northeast Florida.

An unrelenting market force and not poor investment choices and mismanagement by an ill-equipped director and inattentive board of trustees put the Jacksonville Police and Fire Pension Fund into its troubling financial position, claims a report issued to the pension fund’s trustees Friday.
The report, created by the pension fund’s South Florida legal firm, is in response to the blistering forensic investigation last year by Edward “Ted” Siedle of Benchmark Financial Services.

A Jacksonville business that defaulted on a $590,000 agreement with the city for a barbecue sauce plant has put its Commonwealth Avenue building up for sale.
It’s not clear how a sale would affect the city’s attempt to enforce the development agreement after months of deadlines have passed without any resolution.
The business, called Cowealth, is co-owned by City Council member Katrina Brown and her mother Jo Ann. Jo Ann Brown’s husband is Jerome Brown, the namesake of Jerome Brown BBQ Sauce.

A father and son are hospitalized in critical condition after shooting each other Friday evening in the city's East Arlington neighborhood, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.
The Sheriff's Office said it responded to the 1200 block of Soaring Flight Lane after a report of two people shot at about 7:20 p.m. and found one person with gunshot wounds outside a home and another inside, both with life-threatening injuries.

The pilot of a small float airplane was rescued by authorities using a boat when the aircraft took on water after safely landing on the St. Johns River in Putnam County.
The pilot, whose name wasn’t available, was uninjured in the incident on the river in the 1100 block of Putnam County Road 309 near Renegades Resort. That is the Fruitland area in the southern end of the county, Capt. Joseph Wells of the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office, said in a news release Saturday morning.

Two motorcyclists died in separate crashes about three hours apart early Saturday at opposite ends of Clay County, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
Jason Platz, 40, of Jacksonville, who wasn’t wearing a helmet, died when his 2013 Yamaha motorcycle crashed about 1:16 a.m. on Wells Road near Eldridge Avenue in Orange Park. Platz was westbound on Wells Road when he apparently misjudged the curve in the road and lost control of his motorcycle, which then overturned, the Highway Patrol said.

The Clay County School Board voting unanimously has adopted a district budget totaling nearly $380 million and set a property tax rate of 6.7620 mills per $1,000 of taxable property.
The board acted at a Sept. 8 special meeting. The district expects to generate slightly more than $68 million from all mill levies, according to budget documents Assistant Superintendent for Business Affairs Susan Legutko presented to the board.
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