Obviously Mr. Glaser misunderstood or misread my article on High Business Turnover in Madison. I don’t need a place to have a drink; I had a whole beer at home last year. With that said, I’ve played the business game for better than fifty years. Oh yes, I’ve been to bars. I’ve been to bars located in Hotels, Restaurants, Sports bars etc. These are the places that business is often times finished. I’ve taken orders worth hundreds of thousands of dollars written on the back of a napkin in some of these bars. However, bars are not what I tried bringing up.
Business Men/Women need a place to go after the day’s work to go over the day’s accomplishments, problems, planning a five-year program on where their company plans on going. Some call this entertainment, bonding, feeling one another out, etc. I have never seen anyone intoxicated, at these business gatherings, ever.
The businesses I tried enticing to Madison, are not new start-up companies. All have been in business a minimum of thirty years. I do not have permission to use their names therefore they will stay anonymous at this time. The company I mentioned that decided in moving to Idaho Vs. Madison has an employ of 436 people. This company ships their product to countries all over the world, and including our Armed Forces. This is a manufacturing company with high excellence in their products. In order to produce these products, one must have skills in Laths, Milling Machines, Jig Bores, Bore-Matics, Computers, CNC Automated Machines, and the list goes on. These skills are not found on street corners, I know of two people here in Madison that could walk in and perform this type of work and I am one of these people. One must train their personnel to fill these jobs. Thousands of dollars are spent on training per person, just for the very basic operator. Companies wish to keep these people happy, and working. Good restaurants with a bar in house are places that attract these highly paid personnel.
Madison County is known for four things, and I am proud of three. The Sheriff’s department is known all over Florida for giving out speeding tickets and one gentleman in Fort Myers told me the “Deputy was so nice he was almost happy to pay the ticket”. The second is, “the Cowboys beat the pants off us every year” Go Cowboys. The third, “Madison people are all so nice and friendly”, and lastly, “why are your gas prices so high?
Our town is drying up, and it breaks my heart. We talk of bringing businesses to our County; yet do little to entice the businesses to come here. I spoke of forgiving taxes for a few years, in order to perhaps bring in a prospective company, of course that was like bringing the 800-pound gorilla in the room, or worse yet, your Mother In Law to live with you. The answer by our City Commissioners was a “NO”
We spent eight million dollars (grant money) for a water tank on I-10 in order to bring in new businesses; two Restaurant/Gas facilities burned down and were replaced by, two Restaurant/Gas facilities. We just spent a “gazillion dollars re-surfacing State Road 53 but didn’t fix the really bad area of Intersection US-90 and SR-53. Why not finish the job?
There are hundreds of businesses all over the United States that are unhappy with where they are, perhaps with a little enticement, a little encouragement, a little push in the right direction; one would move to our County and bring in good paying jobs?
Oh! And before I forget, “the no booze thing” Mr. Glaser mentioned we should advertise in order to bring in businesses, haven’t we done this since prohibition?
Our county is dying, and we need help. We need to cut our operating budgets; I honestly think we should try the following.
Dump the City Commissioners, Mayors, Managers then merge one each representative into the County group from Lee, Greenville, and other townships. We certainly don’t need all these different groups, making demands from we tax payers. Do we?
Dump our County manager, that’s what we pay our Commissioners for. If the commissioners can’t handle the job, then get out and we will get someone that can.
Bring the Police department, into the Sheriff’s office. Why do we need two different groups doing the same job? Of the duplicity jobs, keep the best and let the others go. The money saved in this action should go to the remaining Deputies/Police. The pittance we pay these gallant Men and Women is absurd. Wal-Mart pays more than we do.
Our road department; other than routine repairs, why not go to the open market and bid these jobs out?
These actions would save us hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, in taxes.
George Pouliotte
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