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.
I was in Washington DC on Friday for a conference and word spread quickly that Tim Russert had passed away. A colleague at Reagan National said everybody was glued to the TVs.
Tim Russert was one of my favorite TV news anchors. He'll be missed.
This past October I saw Tim speak at the PRSA International Conference and was able to get quite a few shots of him.
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.
Just a small note that Winter Haven's cnp_studio just helped launch yet another high-profile web project, this time for eBay. Both Nick and I noted the hat trick that cnp_studio has recently completed with projects for eBay, Yahoo and Sony. Who says we're a 'rural' community?
Midsize airports outside major cities, such as New York and Los Angeles, are the fastest-growing in the nation and have seen passenger and flight volumes soar by up to 400% in the past decade, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data shows.
The growth is primarily fueled by two factors: discount airlines flocking to cheaper secondary airports and population growth in regions located about an hour from New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Washington, airport consultant Mike Boyd said.
Here is the key line for the Polk County/Lakeland area:
"Where you've got a population base and ease of access, you're going to get growth," Boyd said. The trend has helped alleviate strain on major metro airports and stimulated suburban development.
One of the info-graphics with the article shows that the busiest round-trip route is Atlanta-Orlando. While Sanford International Airport also serves Orlando, Lakeland is in a good position to cover Orlando and Tampa.
Would Lakeland build-up the infrastructure at Linder to handle commercial airlines?
The drawback might just be all the residential development that has occurred around the airport/Polk Parkway. I'm not sure local residents would like to hear steady jet-service over their neighborhoods.
Of course the tragic crash on I-4 yesterday is the big news in all the local papers. However, it's interesting to note the difference in the 'lead' story for the two papers, The Ledger and the Orlando Sentinel.
The Ledger's main headline is 4 Dead, 38 Injured in Massive Pileup and the story focuses on the wreck and the rescue operations. There are interviews with crash survivors and rescue personnel. Only at the end is there a short discussion about the conditions that lead to the poor visibility.
The Orlando Sentinel's main headline is Warning Signs Began Nearly 20 Hours Before Polk Crash and the story focuses on who could possibly be at fault for the accident. Should FHP have closed the road? etc. The story features segments like this:
Before sunset Tuesday, National Weather Service meteorologists issued a fog alert based on a scale of one through 10. Experts consider seven or higher to be risky for drivers. The forecast for north Polk County was a 10.
A few hours later, the state Division of Forestry told the Florida Highway Patrol to expect dangerous conditions because of a particularly stubborn and smoky wildfire at I-4 and County Road 557....
...The warning was not a routine call. Only once or twice a year do forestry officials, who rely on sophisticated computer models, tell FHP to be on guard for a smoked-in highway.
In all, those and other warnings of horrendous visibility caused by smoke, fog or both were unmistakable. Yet as it turned out, FHP troopers would find little to be concerned about, and the state Department of Transportation installed just one warning sign in each direction
The Ledger does have a sidebar story about the role the smoke played in the accident, but it's not the main, above the fold story. Perhaps because the Ledger is more 'local' to the story they're still focusing on the immediate/human aspect of the story, while the Sentinel is moving beyond the initial story.
I expect in the coming days the Ledger's focus will shift from the events of the accident to the events that caused the accident. It's a natural progression of the story and the details will emerge as the investigation continues.
Anyway, I just thought it was interesting that two major papers would have those different angles on the story one-day out.
Update: The Orlando Sentinel has posted two items looking and the varying coverage:
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.
Back in October of 2004 when the intelligent design debate was first heating up Wired Magazine wrote a feature article looking at the issues. The article is long, but it's a good read and still relevant three years later.
One of the main points of the article is the ID proponents look for debate and discussion since this creates an equal standing on the issue, but that's the issue.
"I'm not a PhD in biology," says board member Michael Cochran. "But when I have X number of PhD experts telling me this, and X number telling me the opposite, the answer is probably somewhere between the two."
An exasperated Krauss claims that a truly representative debate would have had 10,000 pro-evolution scientists against two Discovery executives. "What these people want is for there to be a debate," says Krauss. "People in the audience say, Hey, these people sound reasonable. They argue, 'People have different opinions, we should present those opinions in school.' That is nonsense. Some people have opinions that the Holocaust never happened, but we don't teach that in history."
Author/Consultant/Marketing-Guru Seth Godin has a new book coming out at the end of the year called Meatball Sundae. You may know Seth from his books like Purple Cow and All Marketers Are Liars. What does this have to do with Polk County? Two things:
Two friends that received galley copies of the book shared the news with me, for the rest of us, we'll need to wait till the book is released on Dec 27th.
As a refresher, I along with a number of other bloggers were receiving comment spam related to Katherine's run for Senate. The strange thing was all the comments were coming from India.
For a while I had an ongoingbattle with Cypress Gardens/Wild Adventures over spam....as in they kept spamming me with e-mail even after I asked to be removed a number of times. The problem was eventually fixed....until now.
It looks like the new owners of Wild Adventures have decided to ignore our un-subscription requests. I received this e-mail below.
Sure, as a former Cypress Gardens passholder I am really interested in a concert taking place at a park in Valdosta, GA. (hopefully the sarcasm is self-evident)
If you spend some time traveling around the country to 'small' towns you'll eventually see another Kress building like the one in downtown Lakeland. For a quick refresher, Explorations V is housed in the Kress Buildng on Munn Park. Kress was a large chain of five & dime store
I am in Mobile, AL today for business and walked by a Kress Building in their downtown. The first picture below is the name-plate of Lakeland's Kress Building, below is the one in Alabama.
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.
I know I've received e-mails from Adam Putnam's office before, but I guess they never really had a formal e-mail newsletter. Shown below is the first 'official' one. I'm amazed it's taken his office this long to develop this type of communication, who knows maybe we'll see a blog by 2010. Here's the sign-up for the e-newsletter.
Wanted to let you know that I have discussed the Thompson campaign at length with Congressman Putnam. He asked for my support and I'm excited to come on board the Florida team with the Congressman.
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)
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:
Willie Nelson is appearing at Cypress Gardens today. It doesn't take a genius to realize that Willie likes the weed and is probably traveling with some. Why do I see Willie getting arrested again for possession and Polk County, Winter Haven and Cypress Gardens getting some interesting press.
How about another coincidence? According to the photo description it was taken in Polk County. Polk County, Tennessee that is.
This was photographed at a closed station in rural Polk County, Tennessee near Reliance. According to the inspection decal this pump was last used in 1996.
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.
Now that the University of Florida Gators have won the national championship in football and also hold the title for basketball there is only one question.....will non-Gators be able to live with their gloating-Gator friends?
While flipping through the channels in my hotel room last night I was greeted with Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd and the deputies from the alligator attack on Fox News. I thought it was a new show, "Grady and Friends".
The alligator attack story is receiving national media attention as well as some interest from bloggers. Some of the headlines are quite funny. Perhaps this will replace the Jelly Belly story as the 'vision of Polk County' for those around the U.S. Then again, either of those aren't very positive images of Polk County.
You just have to love campaign finance reports. For those of you that don't know, campaigns are required to file extensive reporting on all their income (donations) and expenditures. The purpose is to keep the books open to expose any nefarious dealings. From a media (and public) standpoint it also provides a great deal of insight into some bizarre things.
Katherine Harris has a very, very specific Starbucks order: “Triple Venti, no fat, no foam, extra hot, with pink sugar.” It is her fuel, it is what keeps her going. If she doesn’t get it, she gets angry. Which might be how her cash-strapped campaign ended up spending almost a thousand dollars at Starbucks this fall alone.
Total Starbucks runs, July-September: 133
Total cost to the campaign: $948.05
The 'Jelly Belly' story is now an AP (Associated Press) item which means it will be appearing in hundreds of newspapers across the country including CNN, FoxNews and then overseas as well. With a headline like 'Jelly Belly' you can bet that a number of places will be picking this up (or 121 as of 8:30 PM this evening....192 as of 7:30 am Thursday morning).
Rule of thumb, when an AP reporter calls, you typically want to talk to them since what they write will be in hundreds of papers. Winter Haven City Manager David Greene didn't follow this rule. From the article (emphasis mine):
David Greene, manager of the central Florida city of 30,000, said through a spokeswoman that he was too busy for an interview, but told the local newspapers the anonymous complaint letters made it clear the police department had a morale problem because of Goward's abrasive management style during his 21/2 years there.
Peeble's Barbecue in Auburndale, Florida was featured on 'The List' in the August issue of Delta Sky Magazine. The magazine had asked their readers to submit the names of their favorite BBQ joints. Peeble's made the list along with seven other Florida locations.
Here are some Peeble's photos from last summer (when they're closed). I think we might be heading there tonight....mmmm.
Kawasaki’s James Stewart, of Haines City, Fla., walked away with $100,000 by winning both Friday and Saturday nights’ events at the Rockstar Energy Drink U.S. Open inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Now that the sale of Watkins Motor Lines to FedEx is complete the change-over to the new brand can take place. The most obvious item would be the trucks.
Here is a shot of the new FedEx National LTL livery.
Yet five years ago tomorrow, the quaint bubble of timelessness burst for this tiny "country."
September 11 happened here, too.
The number of innocent lives lost in that terrorist attack was tallied at 2,973 -- just two fewer than the number of Frostproof folks recorded in the 2000 census.
While there have been many ways to scale the crime, one becomes most intimate here. It was as if the entire population of this little town they call "The Friendly City" had been murdered.
Five years later and more than 1,000 miles from the attacks, life has shifted for Frostproof.
On Tuesday of this week I worked as a precinct clerk for the Polk County Supervisor of Elections and can tell you that it would be almost impossible to get access to the machine at the polls. One of the positions at every precinct is the Ballot Box Inspector. Their job is to watch the machine all day. If they have to leave for any reason, then the somebody else, usually the precinct clerk needs to take over.
There have been some recent questions about the Diebold voting systems, but much of that is centered around the touch screen machines, which we do not use in Polk County. With many of the touchscreen systems there is no paper record of a vote. In Polk County each voter completes an actual ballot which is scanned, and those ballots are stored for a period of time after the election and can be referred back to if necessary.
Similar to the USAToday rankings released earlier today, Hoover, AL is ranked #1. Lakeland and Glades Central, both ranked by USAToday, are joined by another Florida team in the SI list. St. Augustine, FL is ranked #16 by SI..
Late Sunday night I was watching the Pirate Tech episode of Modern Marvels on the History Channel and on the screen appears a familiar face, Dr. David Nateman. David used to work at the Polk Museum of Art in Lakeland, FL
News.com reports that the House Judiciary Committee voted 20-13 to approve a net neutrality bill:
By a 20-13 vote Thursday that partially followed party lines, the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would require broadband providers to abide by strict Net neutrality principles, meaning that their networks must be operated in a "nondiscriminatory" manner.
All 14 Democrats on the committee (joined by 6 Republicans) supported the measure, while 13 Republicans opposed it.
That vote is a surprise victory for Internet companies such as Amazon.com, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo that had lobbied fiercely in the last few months for stricter laws to ensure that Verizon, AT&T and other broadband providers could not create a "fast lane" reserved for video or other high-priority content of their choice.
However this does not end the issue:
It's not clear what will happen next in the House. Often the House leadership, in this case the Republicans, will try to meld similar proposals together into one package before a floor vote. Alternatively, the Republican leadership could permit both bills to go to the floor for votes.
Net neutrality has been an operating principle since the Internet's inception. But since the Federal Communications Commission changed its enforcement rules last year, says Common Cause, "there is now no rule or regulation that will prevent the phone and cable companies from doing what they've said they want to do: charge content providers for the right to be on their Internet pipes, and make special deals with some companies to ensure their sites and services work faster and are easier to find by Internet users."
Congress should pass this act and preserve Net neutrality. Unfettered Internet access has opened up a whole new virtual world. Profit-motive censorship is no less despicable than the ideological sort.
