Good News
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All too often the good that is accomplished by city staff and employees goes unreported and unnoticed. The purpose of this page is to highlight those good works as I learn about them. This page may also carry community news, as occasion arises. June 3, 2010 Economic Development Update from the Chamber Project Activity – We held four prospect meetings with expansion projects last week as well as a conference call with an out of state manufacturer. The projects are all manufacturers with average wages ranging from $29,000 to $40,000 annually. Unfortunately, we were eliminated along with all US sites by a European-based renewable energy (wind) project due to the strengthening of the US dollar against the Euro. Pre-Bid – We held a meeting with our project manager from the US Economic Development Administration regarding the tech campus last week. The meeting allowed the EDA’s project manager to sit down with us, our engineers and our grant administrator with the West Florida Regional Planning Council to go over the EDA’s construction doc requirements and pre-bid information. 1752 – The Governor signed Senate Bill 1752, or the Jobs for Florida Bill into law last week. The bill represents a shift by the state to be more aggressive in job creation and economic development. Several programs were enhanced through the bill including $1,000 and $2,000 bonuses per job in the State’s Qualified Target Industry Incentive program. Several Northwest Florida business and community leaders where involved in the effort, not the least of which was Senator Gaetz who led the charge for this bill as the Chairman of the Select Committee on Florida’s Economy as well as Allen Bense and Susan Story through their involvement with Enterprise Florida. For more details on the budget and incentive programs that have been funded you can go to: http://www.flgov.com/release/11635. Charles Wood, Senior Vice President - Economic Development Pensacola Bay Area Chamber of Commerce
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