In late January of 2006 I blogged about the Polk Art Mafia. The P.A.M. MySpace group was started by Bonnie B. as an outlet for those interested in arts in Polk County.

The group just reached a major milestone with the 500th member joining. Who said the arts aren't important in Polk County?

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The Winter Haven Chamber of Commerce launched a new web site just in time for the new year. The updated site includes a blog that is written by Bob Gernert and other chamber staff.

One of the first posts deals with the Cleveland Indians moving out of Winter Haven. The blog, not even one day old has already generated a few comments. It's great to see a local chamber using this conversational medium as a way to communicate with the community.

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First I was busy, then I was sick.....in any case EP is suffering because of it. Tomorrow, I head out for vacation, so it looks like I'll see you next year.

One more thing.... In the interim I suggest you check out two other local blogs if you haven't already:

- Mama Need Java
- Lakeland Local

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I am in Washington D.C. for the next few days so updates will be light. See you later this week.

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The Orlando Sentinel has a feature article about the area between Orlando and Tampa. Know where that is? Middle of Somewhere is the title of the article. here is one stat that I think we all know/deal with.

Polk County alone, which sits squarely between the two largest cities, could gain as many as 240,000 people in the next 25 years, University of Florida researchers say. That's the equivalent of plopping all of Jersey City, N.J., into the county.

If you live-in/care-about Polk County, you should go read the entire article.

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Today marks the first birthday for Empirical Polk. It was one year ago that the first 'official' post went online: My Day as an Election Worker. In that time we've had a total of 398 posts and 286 visitor comments. That averages out to be around 33 posts per month, or about 1 per day. Setting out that was my goal, 1 post per day.

Determining this blog's birthday is somewhat difficult. The first actual posts went online in November of 2005, but they were all housekeeping/technical items. Then the 'launch' happened on Jan 1, 2006 with the aptly titled, Welcome to Empirical Polk. For the historical record though, I'm going to stick with December 6, 2005.

As with any blog, the traffic has slowly built, starting with a handful in early '06 to an average of 100 unique visitors per day today. Along the way we've had some interesting spikes, notably the Brian Doyle case, Katherine's Starbucks habit and that Jelly Belly memo.

I am also proud of the relationship we have with the local media, specifically Barry from the Ledger and Billy from the Tampa Tribune. EP often links to their publications, and from time-to-time they link back. In Winter Haven, the News Chief has a new publisher, so we'll see what 2007 has in store for them

A big thanks to all the readers and supporters. We'll check in again like this in December of 2007.

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The News Chief reports that the City of Lake Wales approved the purchase of Tasers for their police force. Tasers have a way of generating some interesting publicity for the law enforcement units that use them. Just as the UCLA PD about that.

Now we can officially start the countdown to the first incident in Lake Wales. If your read the full article, it notes that Lake Wales is also purchasing cameras to go along with the Tasers:

Officers will also be using the X26 Taser Cam, an audio-video recording device that is activated any time the unit is armed.

"Once an officer removes the X26, it automatically begins to capture information prior to, during and after the potential deployment of the device," said Gillis. "This provides for accountability, video evidence and protection against complaints. Video doesn't lie. It captures events as they unfold."

All I'll add is that video does lie sometimes, since it only shows you what it sees. In the case of the Taser-cams it will only show you what happens once the weapon has been armed, and won't show the events that lead up to the arming.

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Billy Townsend over at the Tampa Tribune has an in-depth article looking at Winter Haven's Inwood Elementary.

Inwood Elementary School may have been Florida's best.

Year after year, the pretty red-brick campus welcomed the children of a multiracial, working-poor neighborhood, fed them into a stable, finely honed teaching system and produced an army of achievers.....

....And then came the 2005-2006 school year, the first of the post-Buckner era. The results were brutal. Scores in math and reading plunged, and that same state equation dropped Inwood to dead last among Polk's more than 65 standard or magnet elementary schools.

The article looks at all the issues related to schools in the community and is worth the read. Billy promises to post a longer version on his blog.

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I was lucky enough to recently attend two important tree-related events in Winter Haven. First was the lighting of Christmas Tree this past Saturday night. The second event was the 'falling of the tree' on Monday morning.

No details on what exactly happened except that a big 'crash' was heard Monday morning.

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