bserver O EAST COUNTY FREE • THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2014
YOU. YOUR NEIGHBORS. YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
EDUCATION
SPORTS
Pairs team skates toward Olympic debut. PAGE 19A
OUR TOWN
CULTURE: Grand Ovation
celebrates arts, entertainment. SEE PHOTOS ON PAGE 1B
New Main Street culinary lab schools hospitality students. PAGE 5A
development by Josh Siegel | Staff Writer
Rowing park peddles plan Needing $22 million to build facilities, the nonprofit behind Nathan Benderson Park seeks local governments’ approval.
+ Speech sensation Sgt. First Class Cory Remsburg’s story — one of courage, struggle and survival after being seriously injured during his last tour in Afghanistan — not only brought the room to a standing ovation Jan. 28 at the White House during President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, but it earned a standing ovation at home, as well. East County resident Kathryn Barnes, an employee at the Lakewood Ranch Golf and Country Club, couldn’t stop crying as she watched Resmburg — her great nephew — be recognized for his service to the country. “I was in tears,” Barnes says. Remsburg surprised Barnes in July, visiting the club to see her and to meet with some fellow veterans for lunch. There, he took his first steps on his own, Barnes says. “He’s just a miracle.”
EAST COUNTY — When a group of rowing enthusiasts and community advocates travels the globe to ask for donations to sustain Nathan Benderson Park, the plea will be backed by a business plan. The plan will show revenue projections and an architectural rendering of a boathouse
that can host weddings, with details such as the number of guests the bride and groom can invite and how many boats the shelter can store. By the time representatives from Suncoast Aquatic Nature Center Associates (SANCA) make their pitch, they hope donors won’t be able to say no.
PROTECT AND SERVE
“To raise $22 million, the business plan that supports ‘the ask’ should cover every inch,” Paul Blackketter, president of SANCA, said motioning at a colorful, glossy packet. “It should be: ‘Here’s what we Josh Siegel have here,’ and it blows them Paul Blackketter, a project manager for Benderson Development, says he is SEE SANCA / PAGE 8A on “executive loan” from his company.
by Josh Siegel | Staff Writer
Ride Along Josh Siegel
Capt. Lorenzo Waiters, like all sheriff’s office captains, drives an unmarked vehicle, which still has sirens.
+ Prime time teens East County teenagers took the spotlight Saturday, taking home two top-five finishes at the Miss Teen Tampa Pageant. Judges named Braden River High sophomore Ally Rahn, 16, as first runner-up, with Braden River High sophomore, Mykenzie Johnson, also 16, placing as fourth runner-up. Lakewood Ranch High School’s Gabriela Cardenas, 17, earned the title of Miss Photogenic.
SEE OUR TOWN / 16A
Capt. Lorenzo Waiters, the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office captain who oversees Lakewood Ranch, says things have returned to normal after the department increased patrols to combat burglaries this fall. LAKEWOOD RANCH — Two days a week, Capt. Lorenzo Waiters, of the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office, rolls into Lakewood Ranch in his unmarked black Chevy Tahoe to support his deputies in patrolling the area. With the click of an all-powerful, universal gate opener, Waiters has access to every Lakewood Ranch community. On a normal day, Waiters insists,
action happens (although sometimes he can still fit in a hair cut at Barbary Shoppe on Lakewood Ranch Main Street). “There’s never I day where I get zero things to respond to,” said Waiters, who started in the sheriff’s office as a 14-year-old enrolled in its “Explore” program. His activity, and the activity of his staff, increased in October through mid-November, when the sheriff’s
office patrolled Lakewood Ranch more heavily. Those were not normal days, Waiters said. From Oct. 16 to Nov. 16, six burglaries occurred in the North 80 sector, which spans from I-75 to Lorraine Road and State Road 70 to University Parkway. Every Tuesday, Sheriff Brad
BURGLARY ARRESTS
The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office, which assisted the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office in solving a batch of burglaries east of Interstate 75 from October through November, arrested a couple who both departments believe were responsible for many of those burglaries. Steven Pitts and Mayra Jimenez were arrested Nov. 16, in Sarasota. They were responsible, the sheriff offices allege, for multiple burglaries at pricey residences — ones in which burglars smashed through the rear sliding glass door of homes to get inside. “We did not charge them with any of ours (in Manatee) because we didn’t have the evidence, but we know they were doing them,” said Dave Bristow, public information officer for the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office. “The burglaries have stopped drastically after those arrests.”
SEE SHERIFF / PAGE 8A
INDEX Calendar............ 18A Classifieds ........ 17B
Cops Corner....... 12A Crossword.......... 16A
Neighborhood...... 1B Real Estate........ 14B
Sports................ 19B Weather............. 16B
Vol. 14, No. 44 | One section YourObserver.com