Mikey---He Likes It!

When Mikey grew up he realized he had been duped...Quiche actually tastes delicious and it is a healthier breakfast food than sugar/cinnamon coated carbs.....But Mikey liked it, the way the sugar-cereal tasted.

I remember the commercial from the 1970's where they gave a boy a bowl of cereal, and it was supposedly a test.  Would Mikey like the "Life" Cereal?  The talking point was that he would HATE it because Life cereal is/was allegedly "Nutritious."   Of course it was a funny shtick.--of course he was going to love it--whole milk over straight carbs covered in sugar and cinnamon.  Who wouldn't love that?

The real test would have been to set the bowl of Life next to a plate of Quiche.  Quiche, with eggs, cheese and spinach--it is delicious and healthy.  Protein, low-carb, and delicious.  Mikey--given the choice between quiche and a huge bowl of Life would throw the quiche across the room like a Frisbee and gobble down the cereal like Pac Man eating the dots...woka woka woka woka woka... 

Heck, it might as well be a choice between a steaming plate of Broccoli, Cauliflower, and Eggplant  OR a bowl filled with Ice Cream, birthday cake, and chocolate bars.  What would Mikey pick?

I see a parallel between this funny choice, above, and the much more serious and important choice about what to do with OLF 8 once we acquire it later this year.

The easy path would be to take the land, build a beautiful clock tower, cobblestone city circle, add in lots of retail stores, a giant park, a nature preserve, lots of buffer zone acreage for NFCU, and an additional 100 acres for NFCU so they could build more parking for their employees, as well as an NFCU employee-only recreation center.  If we hit the easy button, we could sell off  the remaining


 200 acres for private development, and those developers would double, maybe triple their investments and build upscale single family housing and apartments on the site--maybe even a hotel. They'd probably even save room for yet another Wal-Mart/Murphy Express combo right on the front. All of that would be embraced by the locals (or at a minimum not HATED) and the decision to do this stuff would more than likely be met with widespread approval.  It would almost be like a love fest (except for the wal mart market and murphy express gas station--but they would be shoe-horned in and then, voila, they would sprout up right in front of the site)

But I don't support developing OLF 8 in this fashion, taking the easy way out and abandoning the potential of what the Restore Act Committee saw and recommended---The vision the restore act committee saw and the experts have agreed with is to create jobs for the whole county and region--not just pretty accouterments for local, nearby citizens--many of whom dislike any further growth.

So going forward will be turbulent.  I do see a way ahead where everyone can achieve a win-win, and we can add some amenities for everyone while simultaneously not abandoning, wholesale, the vision of job creation.  I support a master plan for this park, some amenities, a school, and a walking track all the way around.

But the thrust of the development MUST be utilized for incubating well-paying, full-time jobs with benefits and a future ladder to the middle class.  We have enough dead-end, no-future, low-paying retail in Escambia County.  We've got enough apartments, townhomes, and subdivisions either existing or under construction in Beulah already.  Let's create new job opportunities for citizens all across the area with this chance we have worked to produce.

Lets eat the healthier choice and not be like Mikey making the easy choice--let's eat the quiche--because quiche is delicious and good for you (better for you than sugar-cinnamon crisp cereal and whole milk) and once Mikey grows up, even he will know this....