To celebrate the completion of renovations to the City of Winter Park’s crown jewel, Central Park, the City will be hosting a Grand Opening Ceremony on the 20^th of October at 9 in the morning to mark this momentous and long awaited occasion. The two-phase renovation process was first completed in July this year, with phase II finished earlier this month, just in the nick of time for the annual Winter Park Autumn Art Festival.

As a way of celebrating the Grand Opening, the Winter Park Public Art Advisory Board will also unveil their latest exhibition, “Art on the Green,” which will showcase the works of Chris Scala and Barbara Sorensen.

But it’s Central Park that’s really the star of the show. The park has always been one of Winter Park’s most special tourist spots, a place where everyone can come together to have fun, to reflect or simply to enjoy the warmth of the sun.

Renovations to Central Park include the improvement and addition of a new electrical system, light posts, sod, landscaping, wider sidewalks and a new irrigation system that uses water more efficiently. The renovations were made as part of the Central Park Master Plan, a proposal first accepted by Winter Park in 2002.

Because of the discovery of a sinkhole under their property, a church preschool is Seminole County is forced to look for a new location for the school or face closure. Unlike some sinkholes that have made it it to the news however, the one underneath the property is not a gaping hole that threatens to swallow the school whole at any second. Quite frankly, it’s far from being the sinkhole our imaginations tend to envision.

Members of St. Richard’s Episcopal Church have long noticed the cracks in the walls of the church for years. What started out as tiny crevices eventually became noticeably larger, prompting church members to consult the expertise of an engineer.

After inspecting the property, the engineer, Hunt Emory, concluded that the church and the church preschool were sitting on top of a sinkhole. Since then, Emory, also a member of the church, has been busy trying to find a new location for the preschool since the sinkhole’s discovery a month ago.

The St. Richards preschool, located north of Winter Park, Florida, has been around since 1987. If the school can’t find a new location, not only will students be affected, but teachers and other staffs will have to find new jobs.

Winter Park, Florida’s very own Sophia Wise, who captivated audiences with her sonnet and monologue from Shakespeare, did the city proud at the English-Speaking Union National Shakespeare Competition, winning 3^rd prize. The Winter Park High School student was in New York on the 26^th of April, where she competed with 58 other ESU winners from all over the country at Lincoln Center. Sophia previously won first place at the regional ESU competition in Central Florida.

For winning third place at the ESU National Shakespeare Competition, Sophia also received a $500 courtesy of the Shakespeare Society.

Other winners of the national competition include ESU Dallas Branch regional winner John-Michael Lyles, who won 1^st prize. For placing first, Lyles also received the union’s Amanda Steele Scholarship, getting him a spot at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art’s Young Actors Summer School, a prestigious institution in London.

The runner-up to the nationals is ESU St. Louis Branch regional winner Caroline Amos, who also received a gift prize of $1000.

The ESU National Shakespeare Competition is a program designed to develop the speaking and critical-thinking skills of students from all over the country, helping them find an interest in literature as they discover for themselves the wonder and beauty of Shakespeare’s masterpieces.

First started in January of this year, the Winter Park Ambassador Program is aimed at enhancing customer service for the hundreds of people that visit City Hall daily for a number of reasons ranging from paying their utility bills, having a business permit furnished, and applying for an employment position.

Like most City Hall offices in other parts of the country today, Winter Park’s City Hall, which is in the downtown area, is extremely busy. Fortunately, the layout of the building is superb, and visitors can easily locate their destinations. The ambassador program was designed to enhance that visitor experience, with the help of two people who welcome guests at the entrance, taking questions and providing directions to the City Hall’s many departments and services offices.

As of the moment, 50 city employees are serving as City Hall Ambassadors on a volunteer basis. Each employee works only twice a month for two-hour shifts. According to City Manager Randy Knight, who had the honor of serving as the first Ambassador, an organization will be successful if they pay attention to customer service. Since volunteering as an Ambassador, he’s found out how much a smile can change the whole demeanor of a person.

Due to the program’s success, the city is now opening the Ambassador Program to the public, and those who want to volunteer can call 407-599-3245 or e-mail the city at jgrant@cityofwinterpark.org on how to be a Winter Park, Ambassador.

Earlier this month the Winter Park Police Department (WPPD) was pleased to receive its re-accreditation status from the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation, Inc. (CFA) – the state’s respected authority in charge of accrediting local police agencies that meet their 250 stringent standard points. Each law enforcement group has a specific set of standards outlined by the CFA that’s exclusively designed for them.

According to Bob Merchant, CFA’s Commissiner and Police Chief of the Altamonte Springs Police Department, receiving the commission’s recognition is a mark of a law enforcement agency that puts the utmost importance in serving the interests of the community above all else. The long-time police officer spoke about the importance of accreditation at a City Commission Meeting held in Winter Park on the 8th of February.

The WPDD first received accreditation in 2000, and received the status twice more in 2003 and 2006. December of last year marked the end of the designation, during the period, a team of law enforcement reviewers from other agencies in Florida came to Winter Park to asses the competence and work ethic of the city’s police force.

With the WPDD’s re-accreditation, we think it’s pretty safe to say that they passed with flying colors.

Residents from the City of Winter Park, Fl, have a reason to celebrate after the Department of Homeland Security lent some assistance in the form of $224,100 as part of the government department’s Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) Program. The money will be used by the Winter Park Fire-Rescue Department to purchase new, state-of-the-art cardiac monitor/defibrillators for the department’s existing Advanced Life Support Units.

On most cases when the WBFD s called to an emergency situation, cardiac monitoring is performed by paramedics and sometimes even firemen. Those suffering from sudden heart attacks have a higher chance of surviving thanks to the defibrillator’s use of therapeutic electrical charges. The new monitors will also be used to provide ECG readings, helping medical personnel root out the cause of the heart attack.

The new monitor/defibrillators use the latest in today’s medical technology and are especially useful due to their compact and lightweight design. Durability is also not a problem – something that is a major concern for the fire department since most of the time, they’re called to extreme emergency situations and environments. Each machine features color, scratch-resistant displays that are also water resistant.

Fire Chief Jim White could not be happier with the news, saying that the grant will finally help them replace their 10-year old machines.

The City of Winter Park, Fl, recently picked DigitalPersona, Inc. to take care of the Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS) mandates authentication component. The city selected DigitalPersona Pro as well as DigitalPersona Privacy Manager Pro to secure their local networks and programs used at Winter Park’s City Hall.

DigitalPersona, Inc. is one of the word’s leading providers of fingerprint identity and authentication solutions for businesses, program developers, and regular consumers. The company develops software and hardware that secures the sensitive information of people and businesses.

Among the facilities the new systems will “keep watch” over are the department of motor vehicles, electric division, as well as the city’s roster of emergency and police vehicles. Furthermore, confidential and sensitive information is kept secure thanks to digital signing and use of an ultra-sophisticated encryption code for e-mails and important documents.

Before DigitalPersona, Inc. was chosen by the City of Winter Park, they used usernames and passwords to protect networks from intruders and unauthorized personnel. But every hacker worth his gold knows this level of security is too easy to break into. The CJIS mandate however, called for Winter Park to utilize advanced authentication systems. Officials from the city commented that DigitalPersona was the best choice due to their excellent track record.

Residents from the City of Winter Park, FL, may have been a bit disappointed to learn that part of the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art was closed to the public, but that’s bound to change when the museum finally fully opens before the year ends.

Regular visitors will delight in knowing that the museum will be better and more importantly, bigger. The Morse—as it is more commonly known—will also house collections from Louis Comfort Tiffany’s long-demolished estate in Long Island, Laurelton Hall.

The renovated and expanded Morse—which took around $5 million to pull off—will also be putting on display Tiffany’s famed Daffodil Terrace, something never-before seen in Winter Park. Aside from paintings, antiques such as lamps, windows, furniture, and more can also be found in the new Morse.

The expanded section of the Morse will include a library, a conference room for meetings, and an additional 6,000 square feet of exhibit space.

According to the Morse’s curator Lawrence Ruggiero, he and his staff are nervous and excited at how things will turn out – whether it will draw in visitors or not.

The museum is expected to fully open in winter this year.

Fate was kind enough to let Winter Park resident Gina Denny watch the movie Sherlock Holmes from beginning to end, for the moment she stepped out of the theater, she knew it was time for her baby to come out.

She and her husband immediately dashed—a quick walk for a pregnant lady like Gina—to Winter Park Memorial Hospital, where she gave birth to a baby boy they named Ryder.

The very healthy 9-pound and 3 ounce baby also happened to be the year’s first baby for the entire Central Florida region.

Although he was scheduled to be born on January 6 through a C-Section, Gina Denny was happy—and relieved—that the process was normal and the baby healthy. The fact that he arrived during the first few minutes of 2010 is an added special bonus though, she adds smiling.

On the other hand, the thought of Ryder being Winter Park’s first baby did cross her husband J.D.’s mind at one point, given her due date and all.

Hospital officials have confirmed other New Year’s births, but none are as close to 12 midnight as Ryder’s.

Special gifts from the hospital and celebrity-treatment by the media made the occasion even more special for this family.

If Winter Park, FL, takes one developer’s offer, the city just might have a brand new post office situated near West Lyman Avenue, for the price of $4 million. The development of the site for the office would also give Central Park a chance to expand by as much as 2 acres, essentially meaning that the deal hits two birds with one stone.

Dan Bellows’ proposal—which was put forth only last week—piqued the interest of city officials who had only a few options to choose from when it came to transferring the post office to another location outside the park. If city council agrees to the deal, another proposal will then be sent to the United States Postal Service office for approval.

Even if the city still needs to find additional funding for construction of the post-office building itself, having the site developed beforehand is a significant bonus and something officials are very interested in. So far, Winter Park officials have recorded receiving $280,000 from private donors, and over $1 million from 2007 pledges.

If the U.S. Postal Service gives its stamp of approval, the decision to move forward with the proposed plan lies once again in the hands of Winter Park’s officials. Designs for the project are expected to be finished (if things proceed as planned) by June, while the new post-office is targeted to be completed in May of 2011.