Monday on First Coast Connect we spoke with Florida Politics reporter AG Gancarski about the most recent news regarding the possible sale of JEA and the latest poll numbers showing Florida voters know little about the candidates for Governor in both parties (01:15).
We spoke with Jeannette Walls, bestselling author of The Glass Castle ahead of her talk next week in Jacksonville (27:23).
With Valentine’s Day around the corner we heard a live in-studio performance from the Sapphire Quartet (38:54).
Cole Pepper brought us the latest sports news including next weekend’s Daytona 500, golf, men’s college basketball and the Winter Olympics (46:00).
AG Gancarski JEA
On Friday, JEA requested a meeting with the Jacksonville City Council to present a valuation report that was released in draft form last week.
JEA Board Chair Alan Howard requested the meeting be held Wednesday afternoon when the final report is expected to be released. However, City Council President Anna Lopez Brosche rejected the request. In a letter she stated Mayor Curry was asking for legislation to be passed as an emergency on Wednesday but Brosche wrote that was premature and the process needs to slow down.
The utility is valued in excess of $5 billion.
Jeannette Walls
New York Times bestselling author Jeannette Walls is renowned for her riveting memoir of her unconventional and dirt-poor childhood, The Glass Castle.
In the book, she tells the story of how her nomadic parents raised her and her siblings, bouncing around the country with periods of homelessness, and then for a time, living in a rat-infested shack in Welch, West Virginia, with no plumbing or heat.
Eventually, she and her siblings left their parents and made their way to New York — where Walls paid her own way through college, then became a gossip columnist, chronicling the lives of the rich and famous for New York magazine and Esquire. All the while, she kept her own past a secret, until she finally wrote about it in her memoir.
The Glass Castle was made into a film last year starring Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts as Jeannette’s parents, and Brie Larson as Jeannette. Jeannette Walls speaks in Jacksonville next week. It’s an evening sponsored by the Jacksonville Women’s Network.
The Sapphire Quartet
The Sapphire Quartet is part of Jacksonville Harmony which performs all around the town as part of wonderful female barbershop quartets.
The Sapphire Quartet joined us for a live in studio performance, it’s a preview of what you could send to your sweetheart this Valentine’s Day!
Cole Pepper
Football is over and Spring Training is just around the corner but there was still a lot of sports to talk about including next Sunday’s Daytona 500, recent golf news and the basketball story of Erin Jackson. She’s 25-years-old and is a former Jacksonville Roller Girl, who after four months of speed skating is now participating in the Winter Olympics.
Kevin Meerschaert can be reached at kmeerschaert@wjct.org, 904-358-6334 or on Twitter at @KMeerschaertJax.
