WJCT News Now

Jacksonville City Council President Nick Howland’s trip aboard a developer’s private jet to a Tampa Bay Rays game is raising questions. Howland says the trip was connected to fundraising for his political committee and will be disclosed in campaign finance reports. Also, the IRS and Treasury Department are proposing rules that could strip tax-exempt status from private schools that consider race in admissions, scholarships and other programs.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The family of 22-year-old Asia Bennett is continuing to seek accountability after she was fatally shot by Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office officers during a domestic dispute call. Attorney Ben Crump, who represents the family, is expected to hold a news conference about the case this morning. Also, a new mural in Jacksonville’s Five Points neighborhood celebrates the area’s history and LGBTQ+ community, following the removal of rainbow crosswalks last year.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A proposed heavy industrial facility in Northwest Jacksonville is drawing pushback from the surrounding community, which has raised concerns about health effects, increased traffic and perpetuating the damaging legacy of “redlining,” which has historically concentrated undesirable development in poor, often Black, neighborhoods. We talk to public health experts and community advocates about how they are building their case to block the project as it moves through the City Council approval process.

Guests:

• India Butler, public health advocate, epidemiologist

• LaShaundra Sawyer, vice president of Lincoln Villa Community Association Northwest Inc.

• Clanzerria Brown, healthcare professional and community advocate

Falling in place

A new exhibit opening this week at the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville captures the artistic interaction between architecture and electronics. The Glitch: Architecture Undone exhibit, erected in the museum’s atrium space, consists of a 25-foot freestanding tower adorned with wood scraps, industrial piping, translucent panels and other materials. The result is two interconnected structures appearing to be plunging downward and upward simultaneously. We sit down with the artist to discuss what inspired the piece and what “glitch” he is hoping to reveal. A free opening reception will be held at 8 p.m. Thursday.

Guests:

• Ryan Rasmussen, multidisciplinary artist, creator of Glitch: Architecture Undone exhibit at MOCA Jacksonville

• Ylva Rouse, senior curator, MOCA Jacksonville

Country queen

After being hauled onto the Grand Ole Opry stage at age 8 by her dad, Mel “the Coca Cola Cowboy” Tillis, singer/songwriter Pam Tillis says she quickly caught “the bug” to perform — even when it meant overcoming crippling stage fright. More than five decades later, Tillis has garnered multiple Grammy and CMA awards, been honored with Opry membership and traversed numerous musical genres, performing all the while. The artist behind such country crossover hits as Mi Vida Loca, Shake the Sugar Tree and Maybe it was Memphis, Pam Tillis is bringing her considerable talents to the First Coast. We ask the artist about her musical heritage and memories of Dolly Parton ahead of her Sept. 3 performance at the WJCT Soundstage, part of the Florida Theatre on the Road series.

Guest: Pam Tillis, country music singer-songwriter

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

St. Johns County law enforcement will remove license plate reader cameras from state roads after the Florida Department of Transportation revoked permits for the devices. Also, Neptune Beach Police are ending their school-zone speed camera program following public feedback and the state’s decision on license plate readers.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

JEA CEO Vickie Cavey says she will retire later this month. Interim CEO Jody Brooks will continue leading the utility while officials search for a permanent successor. Also, Jacksonville’s Museum of Science & History says design work for its new Northbank location is 60% complete, with groundbreaking targeted for 2027.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Florida is revoking permits for Flock cameras and other automated license plate readers installed along state highways, prompting law enforcement agencies across Northeast Florida to discontinue their use.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Demolition could begin this week on the east wing of Jacksonville’s former Regency Square Mall, clearing the way for apartments and new retail space. Also, forecasters are tracking two areas of tropical activity, neither of which is expected to become a tropical cyclone threatening Florida, but both could contribute to increased rainfall and rough seas this week.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Each Friday, our media roundtable dives into the biggest stories of the week. Among our topics this week:

• A grand jury finds the DeSantis administration “misappropriated” taxpayer money for political purposes. What does it mean for the state's attorneys general as they both run for election in November?

• The City Council prepares for possible property tax cuts with prophylactic budget tightening around public services, arts and — possibly — the Skyway overhaul.

• The governor wades into the Flock camera controversy, calling surveillance “out of control.” 

• A speedy guilty verdict in a 2022 Jacksonville Beach murder-for-hire killing sets the table for the upcoming trial of the victim’s estranged ex-wife.

Guests:

• David Bauerlein, Florida Times-Union metro reporter

• John Daigle, former City Hall reporter, political consultant

• Anthony Austin, anchor, First Coast News

• Nate Monroe, executive editor, The Florida Trib

First impression

A new community theatre opened to audiences this month in St. Augustine with the intention of ushering in a “new era” of storytelling. Led by Artistic Director Sherrie Provence, Catalyst Theatre opened with The Great American Trailer Park Musical, a campy musical comedy set (where else?) in Florida. Provence spent five years leading the Limelight Theatre in St. Augustine before hanging her own shingle. What can audiences expect from the rest of the inaugural season?

Guests:

• Sherrie Provence, artistic director, Catalyst Theatre

• Heather Starling, actor playing Jeannie in The Great American Trailer Park Musical

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The City of Jacksonville wants to bring the annual Army-Navy football game to EverBank Stadium, and Florida health officials are moving toward removing school vaccine mandates for multiple diseases.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was a 24-hour cocktail party, an extended drug trip and a time of unbridled creative and sexual abandon. Nineteen-seventies-era Key West was also a destination hideaway of literary, cinematic and musical luminaries including Hunter S. Thompson, Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, Margot Kidder, Thomas McGuane, Jerry Jeff Walker, Truman Capote and, perhaps most iconically, Jimmy Buffett. Amid it all was St. Augustine artist, restaurateur and founder of the Black Fly Outfitters resort Vaughn Cochran, original member of Buffett’s band, later dubbed the Coral Reefers. “I was the jug-band guy, playing the washboard, mandolin, and banjo,” he recalls. Now, Cochran is part of a new documentary, Occupational Hazard: The First Coral Reefers, examining what it means to carry the legacy of a romanticized but often poorly remembered era.

Guest: Vaughn Cochran, artist, founder of Black Fly Outfitters and original member of the Coral Reefers, Jimmy Buffett's band

Remembering Ax Handle Saturday

Sixty six years after a racist mob armed with ax handles and baseball bats attacked Black residents in Jacksonville, the city is unveiling a new marker to remember the violent event. On Aug. 27, 1960, known as Ax Handle Saturday, hundreds of white rioters threatened and beat peaceful protesters demonstrating at Jacksonville lunch counters, as well as Black passerby. We sit down with civil rights activist Rodney Hurst, who was forced to flee from attackers, to discuss the importance of formally recognizing the incident with a marker on Jacksonville’s Civil Rights Trail. Hurst will join Mayor Donna Deegan at 11 a.m. Thursday for the marker’s unveiling ceremony at James Weldon Johnson Park.

Guest: Rodney Hurst, Ax Handle Saturday witness, activist, author and Black historian

True originals

As part of the nation’s 250th celebration, the Smithsonian museum is looking back at the greater bulk of continental history, in which indigenous people inhabited what we now know as the U.S. for more than 13,000 years before the arrival of European explorers. Titled Americans and developed by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, curators say the project focuses on four significant historical events: Thanksgiving, the Trail of Tears, the Battle of Little Bighorn and the life of Pocahontas. A companion exhibit at the Amelia Island Museum of History, developed in collaboration with the University of North Florida, the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, is titled Visualizing Indigenous Florida. We talk to the curator about how the shows landed at the small First Coast museum and what they contain.

Guest: Tirik Peterson, curator, Amelia Island Museum of History

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.