Watch the Fox 10 TV News  item.

Bob, Bob, Bob..!  It's not the Jubilee Center (Centre?)  It's the Spanish Fort/Bass Pro/Pink Elephant Center.  Get it right, please.

Rob, Rob, Rob...!  It's never been about golf.  How many TimberCreek residents play the course?  How many have golf course lots; and of those that do how many just like to look at the grass and the trees.  It's about our life long investment in living in Baldwin County.

But let's talk economics. And what better way to start than to ask an expert on the subject:

When talking about the road that will connect Bass Pro with the Eastern Shore Center, the Baldwin County Engineer said that it would “help the economy at each mall"

The wine and tapas bar near the cinema (Cellar 43) went out of business and the property has remained empty ever since.  Would an extra road have brought in more wine drinkers and eaters of small pieces of food on crackers or is it the fact that people don’t have enough disposable income to eat and drink out?

Another restaurant (Guglielmo's "A Taste of Italy") recently quit the Eastern Shore Centre.  Are you telling me they would still be there if there was an extra road leading to it?

Behind the Eastern Shore Centre and near the Eastern Shore Plaza there are vast tracts of land waiting to be developed.  Will the prospect of the service road waken commercial investors from their slumber and have them building exciting new projects and creating hundreds of new jobs? I doubt it.

What about the land that the service road will serve directly?  Behind Wilson Heights alongside I-10 near La-Z-Boy there are hundreds of acres of land available with a ready built road infrastructure but nobody is coming forward with the money to develop on it.

It’s a double-dip recession folks; the investment isn’t going to come for a long, long time and certainly not because there is a service road between McDonalds and JC Penney. 

OK, so what is the answer?

We are sometimes too quick to criticize people in what can be very difficult jobs so let’s look at the alternatives.

Both malls are in Spanish Fort, and as such that city receives the sales tax revenue generated.  Why doesn’t the City of Spanish Fort lower the cost of doing business in the malls so more stores can open and stay open for more than 6 months?

Lowering sales taxes, lowering rents, providing subsidies to start up businesses, encouraging growth through investment in time and support (for example through the Chamber of Commerce).  These are the things that get investors juices flowing and keen to put money into a local economy.

Economics 101:  50% of something is better than 100% of nothing.

Mayor Bonner of Spanish Fort is not surprisingly a supporter of the road.  Any increase in sales at either mall results in increased revenue for his city; I understand that and applaud him for standing up for his residents.  But the folks of Spanish Fort do not want to pay for the road as the vast majority of the new development will be in Daphne City limits.

Mayor Small of Daphne also supports the road.  I do NOT applaud him for his actions. 

On the City of Daphne web site Mayor small says “We are a unified body of individuals”

A large unified body of individuals whom he represents made their views very clear back in April and again on November 10^th.  If there were any Daphne citizens who supported the road they were conspicuous by their absence so what right does he have to stand in front of the County Commission with his Mayoral hat on (figuratively at least) and tell them that Daphne wants the road – they don’t.

The Bottom Line

Why should the residents of Daphne subsidize increased sales tax revenues in Spanish Fort when they can’t even find the money to repair their own existing roads?

Why should every man, woman and child in Baldwin County give $50 of their hard earned money to a project that isn’t needed and certainly isn’t wanted?

Answers to these questions should be put on a ballot paper during the City elections in August 2012 and the next County Commission vote in 2014.