EDC may escape budget cut

Although Brevard County faces declining revenue it appears there are three votes to throw away another $1.5 million this year on the Economic Development Council, of the most effective smoke and mirror money machines in recent Brevard County history. Threatened with a miniscule 10% cut, the EDC came out in force throwing a number of stats at the County Commissioners. The EDC created 8,000 jobs, the EDC brought improvement now paying $7 million per year in taxes, and the always faithful, “NOW more than ever!” Yes, your money, their investment.

Eight thousand jobs? Seven million in annual taxes? 2,000+ new jobs coming? How is that Embraer coming with the demand so big for private jets? No one asked for stats. Nobody asked where the 8,000 jobs are located, and the $350 million in improvements that would be needed to generate the $7 million. Numbers are tossed about and given a free ride, nobody thinking to challenge them.

Where is the critical discussion to demand the back-up material that delineates these jobs and improvements, and not some number extrapolated or estimated numbers, but numbers where it can be shown WITHOUT the involvement of the EDC itself the jobs and improvements would not have happened. And by the way, getting a company to leave Palm Bay to expand in Melbourne does not count.

Like President Obama, who ’saved’ 3 million jobs with the stimulus, statistics equivalent to quackery.

I wonder about the infamous Project Jaguar, the private jet builder with the free gift of $1.8 million from the taxpayers, and if a shovel of dirt has been turned since the politician photo op. This big EDC ‘coup’ of a year ago went completely unmentioned at the Commission budget meeting.

When I worked at the Cape, I was not a rocket scientist. My job was to blow up their errors.
The tradition continues …..