Jacksonville, Florida | featured news

An arm of Gate Petroleum sued St. Johns County on Monday to get rezoning approval for Ponte Vedra Beach land where, it argued, neighbors’ complaints have stalled decisions indefinitely.
Ponte Vedra Corp. only applied in July to rezone the 99 acres on Neck Road called the Outpost, but Gate Petroleum Vice President Ken Wilson said county planners never answered related requests the company made in 2013 and 2014.
“This was sort of a last resort to us,” Wilson said.

In 1945, venerable Times-Union photographer Grover Henley wanted to find out more about the elderly sailor living something of a castaway’s life as the “sole inhabitant and ruler” of an island in the heart of Jacksonville.
So he asked the youngest of the old salt’s eight daughters, Totsie, for an introduction, and she took him on a visit to her father’s island.
He got a great photograph out of it, one that’s as evocative as any good movie poster.

Some Duval County School Board members wrote tougher criticisms of Superintendent Nikolai Vitti’s performance in their notes to his evaluation than they expressed during their face-to face session with him last week.
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A new ride-hailing service in Jacksonville is leading to the renaming of two old standbys in the transportation world: Yellow Checker and Gator cab companies of Jacksonville will officially be called zTrip as of Tuesday.
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A public hearing to discuss a proposed Jacksonville National Cemetery Access Road will be held at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Lannie Road Baptist Church at 5998 Lannie Road, according to the Florida Department of Transportation.
The hearing begins with an open house from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the church, which is 2.5-miles southwest of the cemetery, with a presentation and comment period beginning, according to transportation officials.

Time takes its toll on an investigation. It can fade memories or even claim key witnesses. But over his career with the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office, Cmdr. Howard “Skip” Cole has made it a practice to take advantage of the benefits of time rather than focus on the negatives.
“Things change. Technology changes. Relationships change, connections with people change,” Cole said Friday, seated in a conference room at the Sheriff’s Office.

With slightly less pageantry than last year, although no less historical meaning, St. Augustine marked its 451st anniversary Saturday on the sacred grounds of Mission Nombre de Dios.
On Sept. 8, 1565, Admiral Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés had stepped boldly ashore at Matanzas Bay and founded what is today considered the oldest continuously occupied European city, port and parish in the continental United States.
To commemorate the event, volunteers with Florida Living History host their annual re-enactment of Menéndez’s landing.

Bobbi de Córdova-Hanks survived three types of cancer, but she says her latest setback is the hardest thing she’s ever had to fight.
Hearing loss.
“It’s very hard for me,” de Córdova-Hanks said. “I live to communicate.”
It’s not only that conversation is difficult. What many might not know about the founder of the breast cancer support group Bosom Buddies is that de Córdova-Hanks, 80, is an accomplished bass musician.

A legal fight between City Hall and the owners of The Jacksonville Landing over the disputed purchase of a nearby parking lot and unpaid property taxes could be headed for a jury trial after little recent movement on the case.
The spat is part of a long-unfurling dispute between the Landing owners and city officials over parking at the waterfront mall, and for now, the legal fight has put on pause any city involvement in redeveloping the site.

A Jacksonville police officer fired in 2013 after fatally shooting an unarmed driver — then reinstated by an arbitrator — left the agency and law enforcement altogether in July after being relegated to monotonous police work answering phones.
Jeff Edwards resigned effective immediately in a blistering five-page letter after determining that 11 hours a day at a desk was his new reality and he was never returning to the streets.