Billy was right Obama did stop in Polk County, FL on Friday. The final schedule was continuously in the air and had somefolks (like me) visiting a few spots around Lakeland. Would he be at Munn park? Plenty of folks thought so and began congregating earlier in the day, only to be disappointed. Who should be the most frustrated? I think the economic development folks. Here's why.
In the end what was Obama's stop, and more importantly the rest of the nation's view of Lakeland/Polk County? Yep, a mobile home manufacturer, but not a nice sprawling plant like Homes of Merit in Plant City, but the old-run-down mobile home lot on US 92 near Lake Parker. Nice......Not.
Well, it could have been worse. Perhaps the Obama campaign could have arranged a photo-op with the naked alligator wrestler, or like Fred's campaign, made a stop at the gun show.
The National Retail Federation announced today the recipients of the distinguished Loss Prevention Retail Partnership Award at its annual Loss Prevention Conference and EXPO at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando. NRF also announced new additions to its Ring of Excellence and the 2008 Loss Prevention Case of the Year winner.
2008 NRF Law Enforcement Retail Partnership Award
NRF’s Law Enforcement Retail Partnership Award is given each year to individuals in the law enforcement industry who have gone above and beyond the call of duty to support the retail industry in its fight against retail fraud, organized retail crime and other major incidents that affect the retail industry. NRF presented this year’s award to Detective Jim Ostojic with the Polk County (FL) Sheriff’s Office and Special Agent Telly Sands with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
In June 2007, Detective Ostojic uncovered an organized retail crime group in central Florida he believed to be responsible for several thefts at local retailers. He presented the case to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Florida State Attorney’s Office. A task force was put together consisting of agents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and detectives from local agencies, with Special Agent Telly Sands assigned as the lead investigator. Over the course of the next seven months, Detective Ostojic and Agent Sands identified 18 suspects involved in the crime ring.
On January 24, 2008, they arrested the 18 suspects, with five search warrants being served. All of the suspects were charged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Through their investigation the task force determined the crime ring was responsible for the loss of up to $100 million to local retailers. This case scored national recognition and brought a renewed attention to the problem of organized retail crime.
Loss Prevention Case of the Year
Publix SuperMarkets’ Loss Prevention Manager, Distribution, Ron Averette was awarded the 2008 Loss Prevention Case of the Year. In June, 2007, Averette began amassing evidence that suggested a major organized retail crime group was operating in the central Florida area. Detective Jim Ostojic of the Polk County Sheriff’s Office contacted Ron to compare the details of a specific arrest with other arrests at Publix stores and they quickly linked the suspect to several other pending cases. With Detective Ostojic’s help, Averette approached Florida Department of Law Enforcement Special Agent Telly Sands to present their findings. A task force was quickly established and over the next seven months, Averette worked hand in hand with law enforcement to uncover the crime ring. The sting operation uncovered the largest (in dollar losses) organized retail crime ring to date and has been a topic of conversation throughout the retail loss prevention community since the arrests were made in January 2008.
I mentioned in the previous post that Polk Sheriff Grady Judd was speaking at the NRF conference in Orlando today. Here's a photo and a quick write-up.
As luck would have it, I'll be helping out the NRF with some live-blog coverage of their event. I'll post a link to my recap of Grady's session next week.
Wow, something I thought I'd never see. Polk County has made Gizmodo, one of the top gadget blogs. They picked up on the recent crime-ring bust. It seems they like bazookas.
The tactic is done to mirror/mock the argument that ID supporters put forth. That is while their 'theory' is not scientifically valid, it does have 'support' so it should be taught.
Yes folks our Polk County School board has once again put the county on the map, I think we can officially add this to the list of Polk County's image makers.
Just before Thanksgiving, four Polk County school board members said they don't support the new standards and think intelligent design ought to be taught as a valid alternative to evoultion.
For many years the goal of the local economic development groups was to attract high tech industry and that oasis of a chip manufacturing plant. While high-tech is still a big target, I don't see the full-court press that we had a few years ago. One of the major issues with drawing any tech firm to this location is the quality of the schools (along with a number of other factors).
Now when an important geek/tech/culture publication points out that a community, notably the school board is having the ID debate, I think it sets us back years in the pursuit of 'tech'.
What site selection consultant is going to recommend Polk County over say Orange or Hillsborough counties when the external impression of the school board is not that great.
Grace Is Gone is a romantic heartbreaker starring John Cusack as a freshly widowed father who can't bear to tell his two young daughters their mother has died. It's also a family comedy as his character, desperate to hide the truth, takes them off to a Disneyland-type park on an impromptu road trip that the girls find extremely weird.
As the article states, I think some local folks hoped Fred would be doing something, err...more positive in the area.
It's not the big sit-down dinner and speech at the Yacht Club that local Republican Party planners had hoped for, but the former U.S. senator from Tennessee and now presidential candidate, Fred Thompson, will be in Lakeland at 11 a.m. Saturday to speak to those attending a gun show at The Lakeland Center.
I imagine that the national media will be covering Fred's Florida tour. What will be shown about Lakeland in the national spotlight? A gun show.
We always try to find interesting and lesser known "gems" along the way. As luck would have it, we hit the jackpot! A bit South of Winter Haven is a little place called Lake Wales. Just to its north, on a forgotten road, is a pretty-well signed place called "Historic Bok Sanctuary". What a jewel!
I've got my new favorite travel t-shirt. Yesterday, Mitch from Mitchell's Coffee in Lakeland gave me one of his logo t's in orange. Right now it's in Dallas, it will be in Arkansas later today. I have trips to Alabama, Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, San Francisco and Indianapolis in the next few months.
Will I wear it everywhere? Perhaps. When you travel a bunch you realize that clothing is all about comfort. I usually stick with Ex Officio gear from Andy Thornal in Winter Haven, but t-shirts work as well. This shirt will be well-traveled.
The first post is credited to 'admin' but I assume it's Cat:
During the creation of ylakeland.com I realized that a blogging component was crucial to the new website. I am not an expert, never have blogged before, and don’t claim to have a vast knowledge of Lakeland. I do know that 8 out of 10 young professionals all say the biggest misconception in Lakeland is that there is nothing to do. This blog is focused on niches in Lakeland that I think college students and young professionals would be interested in. Of course it is presented from my bias. Let me know if you have any thoughts…I am always open to ideas, comments, suggestions, and questions.
If you didn't know, quite a bit of 'prep' for some Disney ice shows is going on at the Lakeland Center. A number of out-of-towners and creatives are living in the Lakeland area during this rehearsal period. One of them is a Jamie Boud, a designer and animator from Brooklyn. In a recent blog post Jamie talks about Lakeland:
From what little I’ve seen of it — which isn’t much — Lakeland is actually a cool looking town. The road between the hotel and the Lakeland Center (where I’ve been working) is lined with Mid-Century commercial buildings decorated with well-maintained vintage signs. Unfortunately, like every other town in America, too many of the old buildings sit abandoned and unused, the locals spending their days and dollars at Target and WallMart, instead.
Jamie arrived on Sunday for what he calls a 'two week' job.
A friend from outside the area e-mailed me and asked if the picture that Cypress Gardens was using to promote Phobia was supposed to the 'scary' or just a photo of Polk County residents. I took a quick look and had a laugh.
It looks like their meth lab just exploded so they are a bit bloody and stunned. Here is the photo:
In his post Dewayne Bevil does provide a shout-out to the Starliner at Cypress Gardens:
There are a lot to choose from. I like the level of intensity of Kraken (SeaWorld Orlando), which tosses you a lot before graciously releasing you. For theming, Expedition Everest (Disney's Animal Kingdom) has it down cold. Montu (Busch Gardens) practically assaults you -- in a good way. And I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the new/old Starliner at Cypress Gardens. It's fun and scores high in my re-ride-ability factor.
A city official recently took issue when I called Winter Haven a "small city." For Polk, Winter Haven may be big. But if you're from Tampa or Orlando, the Haven is just another town several miles off Interstate 4.
I'd love to know who John is referring to since I'd like to ask them how they would define something like Lakeland (which is 2 to 3 times the size of Winter Haven) or Tampa/Orlando. Are they 'mega cities'?
I really don't consider Winter Haven a 'big city', in fact when I travel to other 'big cities' I will tell people that I'm from a small town in Central Florida. So there, I just demoted Winter Haven from a 'small city' to a 'small town'.
Cities like Winter Haven and Lakeland always want to have things both ways. When it comes to attracting businesses and other economic development initiatives they want to appear like a 'big city', but when it comes to quality of life they want to appear like a 'small town'.
The Orlando Sentinel reports that Polk County is spending $50,000 in hopes of winning the All-America City designation. From the article intro:
Kissimmee/Osceola County allocated $109,000 for the event, while neighboring Polk County is making its bid with a $50,000 budget.
The two Central Florida communities are among 21 finalists named earlier this year for the award that the sponsoring National Civic League says exemplifies grass-roots community problem-solving and is given for cooperatively tackling challenges and achieving results.
Residents and officials from both delegations head to Anaheim, Calif., next week to make their respective pitches during 10-minute presentations and 10-minute question-and-answer sessions that supplement a written application
Later in the article the details about Polk's bid emerge:
Polk County is taking about 32 people, including seven teens and five county commissioners, spokeswoman Cindy Rodriguez said.
While the board approved up to $50,000 in funding, Rodriguez said the community is pitching in with funding that will offset the total cost.
This morning at 7 a.m., I met cyclist Andrew Young from Winter Haven in Dundee on State Road 17 -- a Florida scenic highway that runs along the state's famed "Ridge." The ridge is Florida's hilly backbone, running north-south from Haines City to Frostproof through Polk County. Lots of orange groves, trailer/RV parks, new residential subdivisions and small towns like Dundee, Lake Wales and Babson Park are along the route.
There are a number of photos from the ride in Alan's post.
With the recent 'Rubber Robbers' story making national news, here is what the rest of the world now knows about Polk County. (Remember the following items received national media exposure)
It was interesting to read the Ledger article about the City of Lakeland's investigation into the 'leak' of the recent financial losses from Lakeland Electric. One of the things I do in my real job is educate corporations that there are no more secrets. Just assume that those secrets you're trying to keep inside your organization are going to get out. And it if the news is really bad, it will probably happen faster.
Employees of Company X know that there is some bad news coming, so they visit the local paper and begin to search for it. The newspaper then sees searches for "Company X scandal" or other variations on their site. Of course most of these searches are coming from Company X's network. Paper says, hmmm...must be a story there, and they start asking questions.
The speed at which truth moves on the internet is incredibly fast. Rather than hide it, you might was well stay ahead of it.
Bok Tower inspires a number of people to write, photograph and paint. Not a week goes by that I don't discover a number of blogs talking about the Lake Wales landmark. In the past two days it's received:
Next was just outside of Bartow, Fl. I had driven past this smoke stack for 30 years or more and always admired it. So today I stopped and it to was part of a day gone by. I couldn't help thinking how this smoke stack had to be over 50 years old and how it was built one brick at a time. I got some nice shots of the stack and of the adjoining old factory. It looked like its last use was some type of fabrication shop. I concentrated on little things like gauges, antique door handles and the like.
It's always interesting to stumble across somebody's thoughts about a particular city/town. The blog monitoring tools I use bring me interesting posts about Lakeland, Winter Haven and other Polk County towns each day. Here are some examples from Lakeland.
It's nice not to hear sirens constantly, traffic constantly, helicopters, really much of anything. The nights are the best. It's quiet, it's actually dark (that's called light pollution in big cities). Other than all our friends living in Orlando and the people here being yokels, it's a really great place. So the solution is that all our friends should move out to Lakeland. C'mon! The apartment we have now would be between $1000-2000 in Orlando, depending on the area. We've got it in lakeland for $750. We can actually own a house and land out here for under $100 grand! Only trailers are in Orlando for $100 grand.
1) guys who think they are still in high school
2) people with no teeth or shoes
3) lakeland square
4) pcc
5) my house
6) bums on memorial
7) lack of parties
8) the vicious cycle that leads nowhere!
9) curfews
10) the bowling alley
11) people who just DONT listen!
Not only is Cypress Gardens a great park for locals looking for a day of fun, but it's well worth the trip for any visitor to Central Florida to see the history and the beauty of the park, plus soak in some old fashioned amusement park fun at the same time. I hope to see you there.
Winter Haven Florida is right outside Lake land. My first impression is that it is a retirement community. After what I experianced there today, I will never go there on purpose again....
You can read the full post to see what happened. Michael was offended by a conversation that went on while he was at the airport. At least the management at the airport tried to smooth things over.
The airport manager pulled me aside and apologized for the groups conversation. I told him that i didn't appreciate the groups conversation, and that the experiance probably cost him about $600 because I wasn't going to purchase any fuel from them. He stated he understood and added he didn't blame me if i didn't. He went on and said that he informed all his employees if he finds out that any of them took place in the conversation, that they would be fired.
Time to put my thoughts out there about just how rotten we are treated when it comes to what has come to pass for service.
My plans are to tell it like it is about the kind of service I receive as I go about my business.
Since I don't know if anyone will read this besides me I will make a promise to myself to be as honest as I possibly can be. I will also use names so the innocent are protected. If I go someplace and am treated like some sort of dirty tourist I will be sure to post those facts.
So far he has written up a few Polk County locations including Pizza Central and Christy's in Winter Haven. Here's an excerpt from the Pizza Central review:
Service is a little iffy. If you get one of the young ladies who’s boy friend isn’t there you should get pretty good service. The goofy looking guy with the sideways hat can leave you wanting.
The chairs come from the long line of restaurant owners who want you to eat it and beat it. They are not really comfortable. So don’t plan on sitting and chewing the fat with friends, your ass will give out before the conversation does.
Our server name was KAREN. This young lady knows her way around a table. We could not have asked for better service. She brought our beverages and inquired if we would like to take our time and enjoy our time before ordering. We never wanted for anything that was not handled by KAREN in a jiff.
Bald Guy reviews a few other places and for the most part I agree with just about everything he has had to say. We'll see if he keeps it up.
Stops include: Haines City, Dundee, Lake Wales, Babson Park, Frostproof and Hickory Lake Scrub. The Flash presentation has text, pictures and audio from the trip.
It's always interesting to read an outsider's perspective about WH and Polk County. From Jon's post:
First off, as you enter the small town of Winter Haven, Fla., you see Cleveland Indians banners hanging from street light posts around town. Can't quite describe how odd a sight that is in some obscure Florida town some 1000 miles from downtown Cleveland.
We were ushered into the parking lot by about three of Winter Haven's finest in what looked more like a high school football game traffic than anything to do with professional baseball.
Jon likes Chain of Lakes Park:
Now here is the greatest thing I can say about Spring Training. Chain Of Lakes Park is a smaller, more intimate venue than what the Akron Aeros play in. It is the equivalent of watching a band like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers play in one of the the smaller bars in the Flats.
I expect to find more blog posts from Spring Training visitors, as I do I'll link them up.
When the time finally arrived, we walked across the parking lot to Chain of Lakes Park. I was shaking like a condemned man being led to the gallows. But unlike said doomed criminal, I was so excited I was afraid I might do a puppy pee in my britches, when he hears the master return home after a long day. We walked to our seats, V.I.P. seats, field level, right in front of third base. Joe, concerned for my well being kept asking me if I needed to breath into a paper bag. And ignoring his frequent admonishments to calm down and shut up, I continued acting as if I had eaten a pound of sugar and chased it with a gallon of Red Bull.
For many people, a trip to Winter Haven is much like a religious pilgrimage to their own Mecca.
This morning I ran into Colleen Burton with Polk Vision, we talked briefly about where PV's been and the ongoing support/promotion of the program.
We talked for a little over 17 minutes, but my recorder died at 16:35, so you don't miss much at the very end. You can download/listen to the MP3 file by clicking here: PolkVision.MP3.
Sometimes you're bluntly reminded that you are in the South. Sitting in Richard's Coffee in Winter Haven this morning an older man next to me in conversation says:
We just can't discriminate like we used to, that's too bad....
For the record, we do no how to spell in Polk County. (Yes, a loyal EP reader has pointed out our incorrect spelling of 'know' in that previous sentence...pun discovered)
An EP reader sent me this photo of a sign promoting Polk County Day in Tallahassee, FL.
General Electric has a new advertisement that showcases a variety of new technologies in their 'Ecomagination' series. One of the featured items is a "Cleaner Coal Power Plant in Polk County, Florida". The screen shot below shows the Polk County plant.
Visiting the Ecomagination site (flash-based) you can browse to the Cleaner Coal page and read more about the plant and check out a photo gallery.
I have embedded the commercial from YouTube below:
First a few disclaimers. 1. I did not write this, it was forwarded to me by a few people. 2. It's not original, a while back there was something similar about Tampa Barbies posted on Sticks of Fire.
All that said; some are funny, some are lame and some are offensive. You've been warned.
South Lakeland Barbie: This princess Barbie is sold only at Macy’s. She comes with an assortment of Kate Spade Handbags, a Lexus SUV, a long-haired foreign dog named Honey and a cookie-cutter house. Available with or without tummy tuck and face lift. Workaholic Ken sold only in conjunction with the augmented version.
Garden Grove Barbie: The modern day homemaker Barbie is available with Ford Wind star Minivan and matching gym outfit. She gets lost easily and has no full-time occupation. Traffic jamming cell phone sold separately
I moved to Polk County in 1985 and other than the years that I was at the University of Florida I have spent most of my life living in this area. In that time I have never visited the Citrus Festival. That streak came to an end this past weekend. My son really wanted to go so we ventured out on a late Saturday afternoon. It was an experience to say the least.
I guess you need to smoke in order to qualify as a ride operator. I think just about every ride-op I saw was smoking at one point. It's always comforting to see somebody escorting your young child to a seat on a roller coaster while holding a cigarette. I am not sure what's more important, the safety of your loved ones or making sure they don't drop that cigarette.
Those that weren't smoking looked like they were trapped in some sort of indentured servitude. I am not sure who wanted out of their more, the parents or the ride-ops.
The other thing I noticed was the numerous licensing issues. What I mean is the 'borrowing' of brand names on rides, games, etc. From the hand-painted M&M's on one ride to the use of the Earnhardt name on a driving ride. Something tells me none of those are 'official' uses. Then there was Spiderman with a pony-tail.
At the end of the day I just wanted to take a shower.
According to the Details Old Florida item, the Washington Post reporter stayed in Lake Wales while surveying the local 'quirky' attractions:
We rented a car and drove a loop from Tampa south to Sarasota, northeast to the Winter Haven-Lake Wales area, northwest to Tarpon Springs and Weeki Wachee and back to Tampa.....In Lake Wales, we stayed in one of the four rooms at Noah's Ark Bed and Breakfast (312 Ridge Manor Dr., 800-346-1613; from $85 a night double). The 1920s Mediterranean mansion is filled with antiques and large portraits of the owners' daughters.
The feature focuses on the old-Florida attractions that existed before Disney and how many of them are vanishing, There are a number of Polk County businesses/attractions mention:
Some of your long-time Polk County residents will notice one other attraction, Circus World. It made the list of attractions that are gone.
We asked Lost Parks founder Robert H. Brown for a list of the most popular closed attractions featured on the site, gleaned from the number of page hits and comments he has received. They include: Circus World, Polk County. Part winter quarters for the Ringling Bros. circus, part theme park with roller coasters and other rides. Closed in 1986.
