Bradenton Area River Regatta a blast; school district employee data loss dire

Cheers to another great day of fun

Once again, the Bradenton Area River Regatta enjoyed resounding success — topping the estimated 80,000 spectators at the initial event two years ago. With beautiful weather as then, this year’s edition may have attracted a crowd of some 100,000 people starting with last Saturday’s morning activities and ending with the downtown awards show. Riverwalk and the Green Bridge were jammed up most of the day.

This year Palmetto got a big part of the crowd, too, for the first time — a smart move on the organizers’ part. Hosting the personal watercraft races brought a crowd to the fishing pier, along the banks of the Manatee River and the northwest part of the Green Bridge. Other activities pleased attendees. Palmetto is an essential partner in this major event, the largest in Manatee County’s history, and organizers recognized the need to share the big-time events.

The Powerboat Super League Formula 2 racing, the showcase event, and XPOGO, XHydro Cross Jet Skis, Disc Connect K9 show, daylong concerts, family-friendly activities — and the fantastic nighttime fireworks — surpassed the first two regattas.

Last year’s chilly, rainy weather dampened the crowd size and spectator enthusiasm, but let’s hope that was a one-time anomaly.

This is now a big-time event that is earning attention around the state and beyond. The influx of visitors gives us a nice shot in the economic arm, worth millions in all the spending for hotel rooms, restaurant meals, snacks, retail goods, gasoline and other purchases.

The inaugural regatta in 2015 pumped more than $8 million into the local economy. An economic study also found most spectators hailed from the Tampa Bay region, but an estimated $3.3 million of the total spending activity came from elsewhere. Ten percent of the visitors stayed overnight specifically tied to the regatta for an average of 3.6 nights.

The 2017 figures, yet to be calculated, will no doubt be better. Cheers to the regatta’s great activities and the boon to local businesses.

Jeers to damaging hacking of school district

In a preventable blunder beyond belief, the Manatee County School District coughed up the names, addresses, wages and Social Security numbers of more than 7,700 district employees — to hackers. The cyberattack also managed to obtain the 2016 W-2 forms of all school system workers. That data loss can come back to perpetually haunt employees.

The phishing scam fooled a district payroll employee who thought the fraudulent email for the data came from Superintendent Diana Greene. The critical information —the bogus email specifically asked for W2s — was delivered to the cyber criminals on Jan. 26. The crime came to light on Feb. 3. How many phony employee tax returns have been sent to the IRS for refunds is anyone’s guess. The best approach for everyone is file your tax return as quickly as possible to beat scammers to the money.

Check with the boss to ensure any email request of this magnitude is legitimate. Red flags should have popped up here. Employees should be trained on how to recognize suspicious emails and avoid unknown links that can infect a computer with malware. Downloading videos, images and files can be hazardous as well. Shortened URL links can disguise potentially harmful sites. Email attachments can be infected, so check the sender’s email address.

The district responded quickly by contracting with a company — the AllClear ID Network — that will assist employees monitor their personal information; new accounts opened in a district employee’s name will spawn an alert and the company will call the victim.

The hapless employee who fell for this scam shouldn’t bear all the responsibility. District training apparently needs improvements.

Quote of the week

“Now we know what our ancestors felt. What a nightmare.”

— Renowned aerialist Nik Wallenda, speaking after five Circus Sarasota performers attempting to cross a high wire in a pyramid shape fell some 20 to 25 feet on Wednesday. Wallenda, one of the eight aerialists on the wire, did not fall, but other family members suffered injuries in the fall. The Wallenda family has endured two fatal falls, one in 1962 in Detroit that claimed two lives and another in 1978 when Karl Wallenda, Nik’s great-grandfather, fell during a high-wire walk in Puerto Rico.

This story was originally published February 10, 2017 at 3:41 PM with the headline "Bradenton Area River Regatta a blast; school district employee data loss dire."