We Can Only Spend a Dollar One Time...

We're not magicians, we can't tear a dollar in half and "Shazam" make two dollars out of it.  We can only spend a dollar one time!

There is now suddenly a tremendous push to fully fund the roundabout study and also to fully fund the construction of the roundabouts at Pensacola Beach.

We have talked the issue to death, I'm not crazy about them. 

I don't think they solve the issue of traffic, yet out of deference to my counterpart in D4 I have voted to move forward with the $1.3 Million  engineering study for this project. (funded from D4 discretionary LOST funds.)

Then came our joint meeting with the SRIA.  Nobody wants the roundabouts-everyone wants more parking.  I honestly thought the roundabouts were dead after that meeting--even the ardent, diehard supporter on the board had no idea where the funding ($20 Million) would come from to build these traffic circles.

So at the last meeting we postponed taking action on stopping the study.

Subsequently, a meeting of community leaders has taken place.  There is a push now to bring back the roundabouts.  We'll see what happens, but if we commit the $20 Million for roundabouts, how in the world can we also commit $Millions for bringing home the $56 Million Triumph proposal to support ST Engineering Aerospace's 3 new hangars, an admin facility, and as many as 1700 more jobs to Escambia County?

This IS a binary choice...We can't do both.  We can't spend a dollar twice.

I want to support bringing home $56 Million from Triumph, $Millions more from DOT, and other sources (including Millions more from ST Engineering)--but this will require the city and the county to each put up about $10 Million each.

Interestingly--many of the same players that want the roundabouts--also want the ST Project too!

But we can't do both.  We have to pick one.

For my part--it is a no-brainer, easy decision.  To land more than $100 Million in direct economic benefit and 1700 jobs---yeah, I'll support that choice all day every day.

Wonder which choice everyone else will make?

Making Proper Comparisons, NOT simplistic ones

It’s easy yet intellectually dishonest to take two different real estate development types, do a 6^th grade-level, basic mathematical comparison on one metric--ad valorem property taxes paid-- and then suddenly exclaim “point-proven, issue settled residential development is BETTER than Commercial!”

To take such a firm-fixed position on such a large and complex subject (real estate development and the public-sector) based upon one data point is ridiculously naïve.

First and foremost:  Because we know the free market system works, the private-sector should always take the lead in development of the lion’s share of residential and commercial development within an economy. The government (public-sector), on the other hand, should enact policies and ordinances that foster an environment conducive to private-sector development of most housing, commercial facilities, and other development that enriches a community (e.g. shopping malls, restaurants, theme parks, golf courses, office buildings, strip centers, etc.)

Of course, there are circumstances where the local government must purchase and develop properties for the good of the citizens and to fill a market niche for which the private sector has no profit incentive. (Schools, Fire Stations, Hospitals, libraries, Courthouses, Jails, etc.).

Then there are cross-overs between the public and private-sectors:  for-profit hospitals, for-profit schools, public-private ventures, contracted-services, out-sourced services, off-shoring, nonprofit- provisioning and not-for-profit service providers.  The lines become blurry on some areas between what the public and private sectors do in some economies.  

That is a fact.  

There are numerous other examples that could be given.

  

And regardless of how one feels about either low-cost publicly-subsidized housing or public-sector economic development---from a philosophical, ideological perspective---there are already numerous federal, state, and local laws and ordinances that encourage both of these hybrids.

Most importantly for this discussion are the publicly funded economic development projects. 

Along with Infrastructure and Public Safety--Economic Development is a vitally important government function—no matter who says otherwise.  Escambia County voters recently approved a renewal of the local option sales tax of which 15% can be utilized for economic development—and this is a good thing! The game has changed nationwide-and communities are now engaged in a pitched battle for jobs.  

States and communities have put together strategies to compete, and there are winners and losers—as in life. 

Escambia County has had several big victories in the competition to import jobs and revenue to our economy from outside of our area:  Navy Federal Credit Union is building a massive campus here that will culminate in 10,000 jobs by 2026 and an economic impact to our region of $3.4 Billion yearly--- per reporting by the PNJ.  ST Engineering Aerospace just completed a massive Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) Hangar at the Pensacola Airport, they’re bringing 400 jobs here and they’ve just received a $56 Million Dollar grant from Triumph Gulf Coast to build 3 more MRO hangars and add an additional 1300 jobs!

None of these wins occur without diligent effort and incentive packages from the public-sector. 

Incentives drive the decision making. Incentives bring corporate relocations, manufacturing firms, and jobs. 

Incentives were the deciding factor in NFCU’s move to Pensacola according to NFCU Senior Vice President Preben Ebbeson as reported in the January 2003 Site Selection magazine.

So, when we bring the discussion back locally to the subject of what to do with the 636 acre OLF 8 site in Beulah that Escambia County will soon acquire, to achieve the highest and best use for this property, we must be sophisticated and intelligent.  We must be deliberative and we must listen to the

When Naysayers are Wrong, Part I

Naysayers have been all around us since the beginning of time.  They are often wrong......

Naysayers are part of life.  From the beginning of time and throughout history there were and are to this day naysayers.  The thing about Naysayers is they are sometimes right in their position, sometimes.   But just as often they are wrong.

History tends to sort out the truth and whether or not the Naysayers were right or wrong on a particular topic.  One thing I'll say about naysayers....if the predictions turn out to be right, they have a lot more credibility than if they were/are wrong all the time...

Take, for example, the first explorers who set out to find the new world in the 1400's.  Naysayers of the time said they would fail.  Worse yet, naysayers back then said these early explorers would fall off the end of the earth because "the earth was flat..... "  We all know what happened there.

Closer to home and on a more personal note, there were naysayers in my last election--one of whom in particular predicted I would "lose spectacularly!"  Of course, those naysayers and the one in particular were all absolutely 100% wrong;  I actually won my primary election putting their hand-selected candidate in last place before going on to win my general election race with nearly 70% of the vote over my Democrat opponent. (I actually won with the highest margin of victory of any local Republican candidate on the slate, on a percentage basis,  up against a Democrat opponent in the 2016 General Election).  So yes, those naysayers got that one about as wrong as humanly possible.  What a hoot!

About the same time as the naysayers were predicting, inaccurately, my political demise--one naysayer was also loudly predicting that a highly successful, local economic development initiative that I strongly supported at that time(and still support) was going to fail.  Here is what this naysayer said, verbatim, about the VT MAE (now ST Engineering Aerospace) airport MRO project back in 2016....

"VT MAE is a huge failure.  It is an attempt to capture crumbs off someone elses [SIC] table because we lack the leadership to figure out our own vision for our community.  Has anyone articulated why

What if it Would Have Been a Town Center Instead? Part II

What would happen to Pensacola and Escambia County if the NFCU expansion and associated $250 Million annual payroll and $3.4 Billion annual economic impact, started in an Escambia County Commerce Park called the Bell-Heritage Oaks Commerce Park, were suddenly taken away and replaced with a "town center instead?" How would that have worked out for Escambia County?

Imagine the gut-wrenching feeling you would have if you always, consistently, played the same 6 lottery numbers weekly-- and never won.  Year after year, decade after decade, if you stuck it out and played the same numbers, $2 Dollars a week, hoping against hope that one day you might win. Heck, forget about the $2.00 you were wasting all those years, you probably just rationalized the expenditure as "entertainment" because between the drawings you would spend hours just fantasizing and daydreaming about all the fun things you would do with the winnings if you won.. Those imaginary daydreams kept you so entertained, the $2.00 was like a guilty pleasure almost, like eating a dove bar or an expensive cup of coffee at Starbucks.  But think about this:  Imagine how sick you would feel, how absolutely and totally wrecked you would be inside (potentially suicidal possibly),- if you went on an out-of-town trip, forgot to buy your ticket before you left--AND  BOOM!!YOUR NUMBERS CAME IN WITHOUT YOU! Just imagine how that would feel!  How long would it take to get over that one?  Would you ever get over that?

I'm guessing that's kind of how our community would feel if there was some super high-tech way some naysayers had at their disposal, perhaps a time machine,  to go backwards in time to keep leaders in the early 2000's from making a commerce park in Beulah called Bell-Heritage Oaks Commerce Park.  You see, as I explained in part I, NFCU has grown exponentially in that park and beyond, on the way to providing 10,000 good-paying jobs here locally--yet there are still some in the community that believe that Navy Federal Credit Union coming to Escambia County was a terrible thing.  They wish it had never happened--some go so far as to say they think it wrecked their community.?!? Now, I have said publicly and on a very frequent basis I cannot have a rational conversation with anyone who believes this--as this opinion/outlook is simply so outlandishly myopic and psychopathic when juxtaposed with the MASSIVE, positive benefit NFCU brings to our region--that it is incomprehensible.

So just imagine if these naysayers could actually turn back the hands of time and sabotage what has since transpired in Pensacola over the last 16 years--making it so that  Navy Federal Credit Union never even made it here and instead grew their campus in Tidewater, Virginia (the runner-up location that eventually lost out to Pensacola). Imagine if Pensacola was not the recipient of the estimated $250 Million Annual payroll and $3.4 Billion in regional economic impact NFCU's eventual 10,000 jobs would bring to Escambia County and Pensacola? Imagine if you were a community leader with vision that worked to bring this tremendous outcome to Pensacola and you had to watch the naysayers blow it up and instead create a park, a retail mall, fast-food restaurants, cobblestone streets, an art district, an amphitheater, and a "town center" to the Bell-Heritage Oaks site--instead of bringing NFCU here in 2003?  Would that not drive you crazy???  Would you not do everything in

What If It Would Have Been a Town Center Instead? Part I

The 11-parcel, 68 acre Bell-Heritage Oaks Commerce Park sold out to one tenant and was/is a smashing success

That's the question I have asked myself.  It is a question I have asked of others.

As we come closer to acquisition of the OLF 8 Property in Beulah, a look back at the history of one property decision deserves a second look with the benefit of hindsight.

In the early 2000s, a small parcel of land, approximately 68 acres, was acquired by the county from the Matt Langley Bell foundation.  The property was situated in Beulah off of 9-Mile Road next to the Matt Langley Bell 4-H property.  In a joint project with the State, County, and the Greater Pensacola Chamber of Commerce--the decision was made to carve this small parcel into several smaller, individual parcels and market them as a part of the Bell-Heritage Oaks Commerce Park.  I'm told there were a few loud, vocal opponents of this plan that did not want this to happen.  There were better uses for this property, according to these early naysayers.  Luckily for our region--these critical, negative voices were not  taken seriously and the park was constructed despite the objections from a few local residents....

PROJECT TUCKER

At about the same time as the Bell-Heritage Oaks Commerce Park was being developed, an economic development effort was launched to lure about 500 jobs to this newly constructed commerce park in Beulah.  The company was huge, a worldwide leader in their industry--so secrecy was an absolute necessity.  After about 18 months of negotiations back and forth, all the pieces came together, and Project Tucker was publicly identified as a 500 person call-center contingent from Navy Federal Credit Union's (NFCU) HQ in Vienna, Virginia. Although NFCU had branches worldwide--this  represented the first time this company had explored the possibility of expanding their administrative/office/support  footprint outside of Virginia.   The competition was tough, but eventually Pensacola won the jobs and the investment from Navy Federal Credit Union (over another site in Virginia) due to a number of factors to include the area's available workforce, the low wages of the area, and a very generous package of incentives offered to NFCU.  According to many sources intimately familiar with the negotiations with whom I have spoken--the incentives package is what sealed the deal and won this initial investment from NFCU for Pensacola.  Initially, NFCU purchased one parcel in the park, roughly 18 acres, for about $20K an acre.  Then subsequently NFCU bought another.  Eventually, NFCU would acquire all the parcels in the park.  Finally, seeing the great potential in Pensacola, NFCU purchased the Langley Bell 4-H property and began an ambitious growth and building cycle that would ultimately lead to several giant buildings being constructed and  thousands of additional jobs coming to Pensacola.

FAST FORWARD TO 2018

As of June of 2018, I am told NFCU's local workforce is up to roughly 6400 persons, with a plan to go to 10,000.  Several new buildings are going up, and hundreds of millions of dollars in capital expenditures have been injected into the Escambia County economy from this private-sector growth--benefiting not just Pensacola, not just Escambia County, not just Florida--but our entire region.  The growth has been rapid and there have been issues (infrastructure not sufficient for the growth)--but things are coming together and the necessary infrastructure is being built/planned/programmed to accommodate the growth.  All in all this past 16 year history between NFCU and Escambia County has been nothing short of a miracle for our area--an amazing Grand Slam Home Run for our area.  Most everyone recognizes this.  Most everyone does.

THE NAYSAYERS 

Even with the spectacular growth of the NFCU footprint locally, even with thousands of new jobs being imported to our community (a text-book, case study, poster-child for economic development success)--there are still naysayers who do not recognize this success.  I met dozens of them on the campaign trail as I went door to door in Beulah.  Luckily, and thankfully, however--the number of naysayers and cynics about NFCU on a percentage basis is very small.  Most, like me, recognize the tremendous boost NFCU has given our region.  But the number of cynics is not an insignificant number either.  There a a lot of them.  The reasoning they give for not liking NFCU is simple--they liked the open fields and bucolic nature of Beulah prior to the growth; they bemoan the traffic and the

Here Is What I DON'T Support!

developers have circulated a rendering illustrating their desire to use about half of the OLF 8 site for a hotel, and apartments and multi-family residential properties.  I don't support building apartments, condo's, multi-family homes, and a hotel on this site...we have ENOUGH of these already under construction in Beulah

A developer has put together his "vision" for the OLF 8 site.  It has now been circulated on social media.  More residential properties and a hotel.  More call center and low-paying office and retail office jobs, and no high-tech, clean and high paying jobs with a future.  I do not support this vision.  Here is what I told him, via an email, below.

Yes, This Would Be Like That...

In a blog entry I posted last week, I asked a hypothetical (and real) question.

Everybody knows it was immoral, unethical, and illegal to use a $1.00 Food Stamp Bill to go to a store and buy a $.07 cent pack of kool aid, keeping the $.93 cents, and then repeating the process over and over until you cobbled enough money in change to buy what you really wanted (cigarettes and alcohol) but what you could not purchase with food stamps.  I saw people do this as a bagger when I worked at a local supermarket here in Pensacola in the 1980s.  It was ridiculous but nobody stopped the practice so it continued.....

But what about a county using LOST funding to purchase a property for "economic development" purposes (specifically allowed under statute)--and then subsequently selling such a property and depositing the proceeds not back into the LOST fund (where uses are restricted) but to the general fund instead(which has more flexibility with respect to what can be purchased/how the funds can be utilized)?  Nobody seemed to know for sure.

So I asked the question on Sunday--in writing.   Now we have the answer, (see below).  As I suspected, this shell game scheme  cannot be done.  Proceeds realized from the sale of property acquired with LOST funds must be deposited back into the same LOST fund from which such purchase funding originated.  So to the developer that thinks we should sell the OLF 8 property for "what we have in it and use the money to take care of operating expenses"--as I told you in person Friday, that is not legal.  see below.

Wouldn't This be Kind of Like That?

Of course it wasn't right and it wasn't  legal for people to purchase $.07 cent Kool Aid packs with $1.00 food stamps in order to cobble together enough change to buy alcohol and cigarettes........

There is now, officially, a movement afoot to pressure the Escambia Board of County Commissioners to "sell" the property in Beulah known as OLF 8 to the "private market" for "development....

Forget the fact that we do not even own it yet.  

Forget the fact that the plan from day one has been to develop that property to create jobs (good paying, high-tech manufacturing and assembly jobs).  

Forget the Restore Act Grant and the Triumph Grant that if pursued and won (The OLF 8 Commerce Park was the #1 Economic Development project as rated by the Restore Act Committee) would exponentially increase the value of that property (by injecting $Millions of dollars into the construction of infrastructure on that land) for the Escambia County taxpayers who have paid the bill to work toward acquiring that property.

Forget all of that.  

Now, all that matters is that this property be sold to the highest bidder so someone can double, triple, or quadruple what they spend for this and build more condos, townhomes, a private park,  single family homes, a giant parking lot, and a large open-space buffer-zone and low-wage service jobs on this site. ( we already have enough town homes and condos and single-family homes being built in Beulah--we have enough.  We also already have enough dead-end, low wage service sector jobs in Escambia County as well---we can do better!)

The logic goes a little something like this (paraphrased below), according to one developer with whom I recently spoke.

“Why don’t you sell the land for what you have in it, and let the private sector develop it, and you can use the proceeds to help with your budget problem over the next several years?”   

But wait a minute--would this even be legal?  I believe, even if we were to countenance the nonsense idea of selling the property outright, once we acquire it, for "what we have in it plus a dollar"--I believe those proceeds would have to go right back into our LOST fund--because that is where the money to acquire that property came from in the first place.  So I asked the question.  And I got a nebulous confirmation back that I am probably right about this.  

I mean, just imagine if counties around the state could sell property acquired by LOST funds and then subsequently dump those funds back into their respective general funds?!?could this not become a shell game that counties around the state could play when financial times get tough by “entering” the private real estate markets locally, purchasing “needed” buildings and property with LOST monies, and then turning around and “declaring surplus” and selling the same properties on the market (regardless of profit or loss—even if the sale price back was $.50 cents on the dollar) to generate desperately needed money for their respective general funds? 

To me this would be a shell game, and I can't imagine it would be legal.  As a matter of fact, it reminds me of what I witnessed back in the 1980's working as a bagger at a locally-owned supermarket chain here in Pensacola.  Parents would send their kids into the store, one at a time, over and over, with $1.00 dollar food stamp bills and they would purchase $.07 cent "kool aid" packs---and they would receive the change back in 

If you buy $.07 cent kool aid packets with $1.00 Bill Food Stamp coupons, you receive $.93 cents in change back in real money currency that can be used to purchase anything---that's why people did it--even though it wasn't right....

regular coin currency.  And they would do this over and over, until eventually the parent would come in and purchase a carton of Doral or Newport Cigarettes and a 12 pack of Bush--- all with loose change.  It was wrong, but it happened.  They

Who Spilled the Beans?

Unfortunately, it appears as if someone with inside knowledge of a recent Economic Development Negotiation has disclosed confidential information (potentially confidential per 288.075 Fl. statutes) about the company in question....Who spilled the beans?

Who spilled the beans and broke confidentiality as it pertains to "Project Fisher?"

More importantly, why do this?

The item was discussed at length yesterday and last night, and the board thoughtfully considered this item and then subsequently voted for a compromise offer to make to this potential Escambia County Employer.  It is time to move on, and hopefully we can get this company to locate here with the concomitant 35 jobs, capital improvements, and potential future growth.

But now someone (a public official or employee with intimate knowledge) has clouded the future of this entire endeavor by exposing the name of the company to someone else ( a private citizen not subject to the scrutiny of 288.075), who then subsequently posted the name of this company online, along with the flagship product this company manufactures.

The company more than likely watched the lengthy debate last night, and more than likely they'll be made aware of this breach.

I hope this does not affect this potential deal for Escambia County jobs.....but it very well might kill it. (I hope not--because the majority of the BCC supported this endeavor and we support ones that are similar to this!)

Reaching out through economic development initiatives for qualified, targeted industries helps to diversify our employer base and is a sound strategy for importing jobs and dollars into a community.

But confidentiality is crucial to this work---as cities and counties throughout the nation are in an ongoing, intense, pitched battle for these jobs, companies,  and investments.

Confidentiality is vital, and that is why the legislature created section 288.075 to delineate these confidentiality periods and to define what information is to be exempt during negotiations and for how long such information must be protected from eventual release to the public--because eventually, after the negotiations are complete, all of this information becomes a public record.  This section of Florida law also describes the penalties for violations.  Anyone that is proved to have violated this section is subject to sanctions as described in

Thoughts from the Economic Development Summit

The Escambia County Board of County Commissioners held an economic development summit meeting Tuesday.  After we had brief presentations from Neighborhood services and a discussion about the Brownsville Community Center, we discussed Escambia County and our economic development efforts.

Those who are interested in doing so can watch the video of the meeting here--there was lots of very interesting conversation.

The presentation began with an overview of the demographics of the two-county (Escambia-Santa Rosa) area.  Zach Jenkins, Director of UWF's Haas Center, gave a  presentation that described the median family income, median age, race/ethnicity, and other characteristics of our area as compared to the state and also to the nation.  It was interesting.  of note were the following take-aways:

--employment wise, we have just recently recovered and stabilized our unemployment levels to pre-Great Recession levels

--2,500 new jobs yearly will need to be created in order to keep our unemployment levels at today's rate

--nearly 42,000 persons (out of 500,000 total population in our MSA) are currently not working.

-- a net of roughly 20,000 commuters come to Escambia County to work but live out of Escambia County

--tourist related occupations, while important locally, do not generate much in the way of additional ancillary jobs created when compared to just about every other category of jobs--especially manufacturing and cyber security jobs

--The highest paying segment of jobs, on average, are from the Military and Civilian DoD jobs, followed by the Financial Services Sectors

After Zach gave his presentation, Scott Luth from Florida West gave a presentation on efforts his group is making to increase the jobs base locally.  His focus areas of industry revolve around cultivation of employers who export products, thereby importing new money into the community. 

Areas of focus include the following:

-Manufacturing
-financial and professional services
-information Technology and Business Process Outsourcing
-Offshore Vessel Service and Support
-Aviation Manufacturing and Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO)
-Defense, Homeland, and Cyber Security

A stirring discussion about employee readiness/preparedness begins at minute 57:05 and continues through minute 71:00 of Items 3 & 6.  In this segment, Luth states that about "90 percent of the issue revolves around employers' concerns about the readiness of the graduates of the schools."  Luth continues "I'm not trying to throw a negative on our schools but I'm told we have to increase that, that level  [ of preparedness] of the students coming out [of the schools locally]."

I spoke about this as well--the emphasis of my comments (67:22) was that we have tremendous social dysfunction, combined with generational dysfunction, mixed with poverty, that is hindering our

OLF8, Beulah, and Master Plans.....Part I

BACKGROUND

We are blessed to live in a wonderful, vibrant community.  We are also blessed in that we have a group of several dozen men and women in our community that have done very well for themselves in business.  We’re blessed because many of these men and women want to give back to make Pensacola and Escambia County better.  They give back to our community in many ways that enrich our lives and make our community and Pensacola better.  We should be thankful for these men and women.  I won’t name them, I’d leave someone out and that would not be good, but anyone who pays attention to local news can work out many of these names on their own with very little effort.

GOOD MEN, GOOD INTENTIONS, AND OLF 8

I have served on the Chamber of Commerce Military Affairs Committee for a decade, and in that time I have met many great members of the military and the business community who have served on this board.  The common thread of this committee is that all at the table understand the tremendous value the military brings to the panhandle of Florida in general, and to Pensacola and Escambia County in particular.  It is with this mindset that when the Navy approached the Chamber of Commerce about a potential land swap that could allow Escambia County to take possession of OLF8 in Beulah, many of these great community leaders stepped up to the plate.  They knew two things.  1.) This deal could greatly benefit military aviation training, potentially making Whiting Field “BRAC proof” (BRAC is an acronym for the onerous Base Realignment and Closure process that occasionally takes place, moving military components or shutting them down completely) keeping this training and all of its related jobs here in the two county area instead of transferring to Alabama, Texas, or the West Coast.  2.) This deal could give the county much needed and in-demand space for large-scale, high tech manufacturing.  So this group of leaders, including a retired Admiral, several members of the staff of the Chamber, Commercial Real Estate Developers, and others began working on the feasibility of such a swap.

OLF8 COMMERCE PARK, INDECISION, LEADERDSHIP FAILURES, AND DEVASTATING COST OVERRUNS…

With the devastating aftermath of the BP Oil Spill, settlement monies awarded from this event will help to restore our environment as well as restoring our economy locally.  With the rankings of projects under multiple broad areas, the OLF8 project ranked number 1 under economic development.  The group of community leaders that had helped to foster this deal, including the Admiral, have recently been shown the door.  After all of the hard work put in and the time and resources spent in helping the chamber and the county bring this project to the finish line, this committee of citizens was recently told their services “were no longer needed.”  Now, the entire deal is fraught with cost overruns, the Navy is in the cat-bird seat requiring enhancements to the OLFX site in Santa Rosa County that were never part of the original deal.  If the Admiral and others had still been involved in these late-stage, last minute discussions, many that are very familiar with this entire process believe these additional demands could have been negotiated away to keep the project within budget.  But some individuals with an incomplete understanding of the whole project demanded that this group, the group of citizens and leaders that brought the county to the dance on this deal, be thrown out of the dancehall just as the band began to play.  Now the project is over budget by more than a million dollars, and we don’t have the deal done yet.  Other issues are not resolved with OLFX, issues many do not even realize exist.  The smartest guy in the room hasn’t a clue about some of these issues that are now putting the entire plan in peril because when you fire the team that got you to the table, you lose ALL of their corporate knowledge on the subject as well as their personal relationships developed with the players.  This turn of events has been devastating for the entire deal and for the taxpayers. Meanwhile, some people bloviate about how terrible this deal is, yet these same people vote “YES” for every vote taken on this project that comes before them.  Spock from Star Trek would call this “fascinating.”

ESCAMBIA’S TRACK RECORD WITH COMMERCE PARKS

If it were a baseball prospect in the major leagues, it would be batting .750 and going for a record setting contract of astronomical value….as Forest Gump might say “GAZILLIONS!” Yes, Escambia is batting .750 on its commerce parks.  Let’s look it over:  Heritage Oaks, sold out, an incredible