Good Job!

It was announced yesterday that Celebration based Channel Intelligence, Inc. was going to expand and create 420 Osceola County jobs. The average annual wage for these jobs will be around $55,400 which is 200% higher than the county's average annual wage. This announcement came from the Osceola County Economic Development Department as this was a project - Project Link - that they had been working on for some time. All we can really say is congratulations to all involved and send out a thank you to Channel Intelligence, Inc. for their investment in our community.

As posted on another blog this morning, and requested many times in our own articles, we would request a release of the public information on 'Project Link' besides the press release that was put out. It is said that you do not want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but what if all the gift horse is giving you is your own wallet back shy 20 bucks? It is great to hear that we have finally started to reverse the job loss trend in Osceola County, but without being able to preview the proper documentation on this project, how will anyone know whether the community's investment was worth while? Right now we do not even know if the County has made an investment in this project, such as tax incentives or elimination of impact fees, to know what our cost on this project is? A request for the public records documenting 'Project Link' needs to be filed and the information needs to be released so at least the un-news resources can disect the information to determine the benefits to our community. The WayneWho staff believes that this project is great and all kudos should be given, but having a department that is allowed to operate without the benefit of transparency is wrong and does not benefit the community.

The real problem with the secrecy in the Economic Development Department is that it hides the facts on why a company such as Channel Intelligence, Inc. decided to expand in Celebration. Is it that Celebration has the needed infrastructure to accomidate the jobs, or are there other factors that can be used as lessons to create economic growth in the entire county and not just in those areas that are up for re-election every few years. This information could act as a blueprint for the direction we need to be taking for the sake of our county and to protect it from the ravages of uncontrolled growth policies. With the information stored in a secret vault, it will be hard to add to this success and actually make up the jobs' deficit our county is now enduring. The answers rest in the information that has not been released and we would hope that making the information public will become a priority to everyone involved.