Comments
Gregg Mahlkov June 03, 2008 - 07:25 PMI notice in the County Commission's reply that it insists on a 15.5 percent population increase 2000-2007, with no mention that these are all inmates. While these cannot vote for, or more importantly to individual Commissioners, vote against, County Commissioners, they also contribute absolutely nothing in taxes to the county either. They still "don't get it, don't get it at all."
Gregg Mahlkov May 23, 2008 - 07:54 PM
While a consensus was reached among the participants in the process, only time will tell if the political forces in the county will wake up to the fact that Gulf County falls further and further behind. I had not realized how bad things were here until Tom Graney mentioned at the County Commission meeting on May 15 that there were only 538 private sector employees in a county of close to 12,000.
We need industry in Gulf County, and NOT more tourism. Offshore oil rig roustabouts make a lot more money than hotel housekeepers and bellmen.
Mike Alles May 08, 2008 - 03:49 PM
The voices of Intelligent Reasonableness are what I heard from the posting here of the Economic Summit presentations held this last May 1st. I think many of the expressed issues and recommendations were spot on.
I particularly liked the idea involving existing incentives and other developmental resource programs for new and/or small businesses. It is a smart idea to create a centralized means to provide one-on-one applications assistance. The many programs and incentives can be hard to find, and the paperwork is often very intimidating to many new business owners
We may also need to look at the rumored Montgomery-to-Panama City toll road that’s been in the news recently – mention has been made of extending it to 98 – why not to 386 or include the “Gulf Coast Parkway” in the project.
The one thing I didn’t find here at the Rurbane Economist was how to become involve with the Economic Summit – I missed the meeting as the “Star” paper was not delivered last week and I must have missed any other announcements.
Background: My wife and I moved (retired ?) here in 2005. We both like Gulf County very much, but (isn’t there’s usually a “but”) we were amazed at several social / economic / political conditions within the county, such as:
1) The dichotomy of political/social attitudes. - Two time zones being an indication of a “North/South” division and the single-member voting districts creating another “Mine/Theirs” type of division.
2) The fact that the county government’s budget was not (especially in this day and age) already “zero-based”, However we do realize this type of budgeting is very hard to do when you don’t have, or track, line item expenditures in the first place.
3) - My favorite complaint - The County (now) has only one place to drink and eat outside on the gulf waters – the Port Marina Cafe. (Unless I’m wrong – please let me know of any other outdoor waterfront restaurant in the county - mike@iceops.com )
I will be looking forward for more from the Rurbane Economist.