Tavares, FL Feb. 4, 2015
My golden rule is the less you allow government to have, the less they can waste.
The City of Vidalia, Louisiana, has "flushed" $16-million of local, state & federal taxpayer funds into a fiscal fiasco plan to build a deepwater port, even though one already exists across the Mississippi river in Natchez. So, not much is happening in the Vidalia port for when they open later this year. They didn't involve private firms in funding the project, so there is no commitment to use it.
"Despite assurances of great payoffs, Heather Malone, executive director of the Concordia Parish Economic Development District, said no private interests have taken advantage of the situation and invested in the port’s infrastructure.
Port Director Wyly Gilfoil said no one ever discussed the possibility of private interests involving themselves with the port’s construction"
At this point, Vidalia officials have no info that any commercial interests will even use the port when it is just as easy to drive across the bridge and use the long existing port at Natchez.
Observation:
They seem to have made two mistakes:
- Committing $16+million in tax funds to the project without any long term committments from customers to actually use the port or committments from private industry to invest in facilities in the port. Thus it was total speculation by the City officials.
- Building a port across from an existing one, even though they claim Natchez is for manufacturing shipments vs their plans for Agricultural uses.
Note: A caveat about getting private investment is that the process for selecting investors should be public and transparent with bids, and not selecting one favored firm (without competitive bidding) who can fix prices. (That practice is known as creating "private public partnerships" which mean the government selects who wins and loses in access to a facility like the port.)
The result is an apparent example how well intentioned, naive economic development plans lose tons of taxpayer funds.
http://watchdog.org/196820/port/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=trending_6
vj
