Out To Lunch......

For anyone to say EDATES' profound positive impacts on our community provide no benefit to the average citizen is a postition that is uninformed, ignorant, and incorrect.  It is an opinion that's "Out to Lunch."--and when stated at a public meeting will be immediately challenged with the truth and facts.

Yesterday the Board of County Commissioners unanimously approved the addition of an EDATE (Economic Development Ad Valorem Tax Exemption) extension referendum, for a 10 year period, to be added to the general election ballot this November.  

EDATE's are simply one economic development tool in our "tool kit" of incentives that allow for time limited (10 years maximum) forgiveness of some county ad valorem taxes in exchange for certain committments by large employers in our area.  These are allowed under statute, but the voters must approve these every ten years.  And the tax forgiveness only applies to county taxes--such businesses that receive EDATES must still pay 100% of school taxes from day one.  So these are actually good for us--but even better for the school board.

And not every economic development deal we do includes EDATES.  ST Engineering Aerospace, for instance, didn't get one.  Others have done deals to build jobs here without EDATES.  But still others required the use of EDATES to either keep an employer here, induce an employer to come, facilitate a developer to build (As the case was for Quint Studer's 'SouthTowne' building downtown) or to allow for an existing employer to expand their footprint.

A couple of years back the BCC was being relentlessly attacked by our liberal daily paper's cartoonist over EDATES.  And I pushed back with a three part series of posts that completely and thoroughly explained EDATES, described and provided documents about the then current EDATES the county had outstanding, and in the process totally obliterated ignorant Andy Marlette's position on EDATES.

Now we are asking citizens to renew our ability to offer these selectively and judiciously when and if they are appropriate------- and one member of the board is apparently staunchly, stridently opposed.

That's fine--one member of the BCC can say whatever he wants and in his circle of influence he can pontificate and bloviate all he wants on whatever topic he chooses.  But at a public meeting when this same individual states as a fact that there's no benefit to average Escambia County citizens by allowing these EDATES and that liberal Democrats and Conservative  Republicans should all "oppose" EDATES--yeah, I'm going to push back on that--because that opinion put forth as a fact is ignorant, incorrect, and "out to lunch."

When NFCU put $1.2 Billion into construction projects over the last 20 years in D1---that was due in large part to the incentive packages and the EDATES provided by the county.  As I said in the meeting, NFCU and their investments and jobs in Escambia County would never have happened and they would have remained in Virginia if not for EDATES.  Read the history of  "Project Tucker" for yourself.  From that article:  

'Project Tucker' Took 18 Months

Incentives were another major factor in Navy Federal's southward migration. "The incentive packages offered by Escambia County and the state of Florida were the ultimate thing that tipped the scale," [Then-Navy Federal Senior Vice President Preben]Ebbesen said.
        "This project includes nearly $2 million in federal and state grants for infrastructure improvements and another $2 million in potential tax refunds and exemptions," said Dick Baker, chairman of Florida's Western Gate Economic Development Council, the Pensacola Area Chamber's economic development arm. Local and state officials, said Baker, had been working with Navy Federal and its consultant, the Staubach Company, for 18 months on the project, codenamed "Project Tucker."
        Navy Federal's board of directors actually picked the Pensacola site in September. Project incentives, however, were so important, Ebbesen explained, "that we waited until January, when everything had been approved up and down the government ladder, before announcing the project." 

And the reultant benefits of their follow on building (supported by EDATES and other incentives) have led to their (NFCU's) growth locally to include a nearly $500Million annual payroll impact in Escambia County. This massive yearly influx of money generates home purchases which generate new ad-valorem taxes and sales tax and gas taxes on fuel purchases that help the county's coffers and grow multiple industries --all of which translates to MASSIVE benefits for all citizens of Escambia County--not to mention the citizens who have now gained careers with this one employer.   One commissioner apparently cannot grasp this.  

But just because  one guy doesn't understand something--- or worse yet understands it but works against it for other idealistic or philosophical reasons--doesn't make his opinion on the topic the gospel truth or worth two pennies rubbed together.  Quite the opposite, he's dead wrong--just as I stated at the meeting.  

Dead wrong and his opinion on this topic is "out to lunch."