When it comes to enhancing the economy of Volusia County, the powers that be act like the man who takes his wife to a party and then ignores her in favor of some glitzy strange blonde. His marriage suffers and the blonde forgets him immediately.
In the case of Volusia’s economy, the government and civic leaders spend all of their time wooing businesses and people from outside the area while giving short shrift to the people and businessmen who live here. The problem with this approach is that the home-grown businessman wants to stay here and grow since this is his home.
The out-of-town business often could care less where he ends up and will move away as soon as it suits him. The Volusia businessman is faced with high taxes and heavy regulation.
The attitude at city and county government chambers all too often seems to be you will build or expand your business over their dead bodies. You fill out endless paperwork and pay all of your fees and licenses.
The attitude at city and county government chambers all too often seems to be you will build or expand your business over their dead bodies. You fill out endless paperwork and pay all of your fees and licenses.
Furthermore, in the process of making life hard on the locals conditions are generated that scare off potential outsiders who may be “under the radar.”
For example businessmen on vacation who might like the idea of living here might ask around and find that regulations, taxes and fees are too high. Besides ignoring the local businessmen, the local powers that be are often enamored with big grandiose projects. Politicians love to take credit for bringing huge companies to town.
Right now Volusia County’s big project is the Ocean Center. This monster appears to be eating our lunch while offering a return that is only a small fraction of its cost to the taxpayers. A few years ago it was obvious that the center was not going to support itself. The county leadership responded by building it even bigger to make it an even worse burden on the people.
Right now Volusia County’s big project is the Ocean Center. This monster appears to be eating our lunch while offering a return that is only a small fraction of its cost to the taxpayers. A few years ago it was obvious that the center was not going to support itself. The county leadership responded by building it even bigger to make it an even worse burden on the people.
The question now is what to do to improve Volusia county’s economic situation. The formula is quite straightforward: Cut taxes and expenditures and reduce regulation.
Things to avoid include fancy paving at street intersections, erecting decorative “tank traps” in city streets, dedicating downtown streets to pedestrian walkways. (this is the death knell for any business adjacent to the walkway area) any kind of rail system and for heavens sake don’t add any more to the Ocean Center or any similar project in Volusia county.
Every public discussion of our economy always includes some plan to spend more on education. We need desperately to spend less on education and get more results. We spend about $20,000 per pupil per year for K-12 which is way more than we should.
County leadership should be very slow to spend any money on projects that are important to the community. As a parting thought, city and county leaders should take a hard look at the city of DeBary, which is in good financial condition as it has only about 20 permanent employees. They have contracted out as many public services as possible, including police and fire, and have avoided starting unneeded public projects.
