Latest / Rick Outzen: (we don’t) color on the dog / May 2017: Preserving Triumph
Transcript
- speaker-0: I'm Rick Outson, your host. Thank you for listening to the show today. Today, there's a triumph Gulf Coast bill going to the governor's office. It's been approved unanimously by the House and by the Senate. and one of the guys that has led the charge has been our state senator, Doug Broxen, and we've got Doug on the line. Doug, congratulations. speaker-1: You thank you Rick. And when we spoke over a year ago we weren't sure this day would ever come, but it has and I think we're very grateful that we've got this chapter behind us. speaker-0: Well, I happened to watch a little bit of the Florida Channel yesterday and you were able to get an amendment added to the bill that I thought was pretty important. Would you mind telling our listeners about it? speaker-1: Well, the amendment simply says this will give you an example. This money's been sitting in a a bank account here in Tallahassee since June of last year. It took legislative action to move that money to Triumph and that's going to happen fairly quickly. We're gonna get I think nine more deposits and if we did not have this implementing bill that does a pass through, in other words the money will be deposited And within thirty days it has to be sent to Triumph. If we did not have that bill, we would be fighting this issue nine more times over the next fifteen years. So I thought it was important. My colleagues thought it was important and we convinced the Senate and the House that th that could to concur with our gr amendment and they did. So I'm I'm very thankful and believe me, long after I'm gone from here and no one can remember the oil spill That amendment will be working to make sure that money goes into the triumph where it can be used for the people, the pen handle. speaker-0: Where Pensacola speaks on News Talk thirteen seventy WCOA. I'm Rick Outson, my guest is State Senator Doug Broxen. And and really what that does is is for our listeners is now when the state gets the next sec installment of the settlement, our seventy five percent immediately moves over within thirty days to the Triumph Trust Fund. So it absolutely. So we're not gonna have to fight committees, we're not gonna have to fight whoever the new speaker is or whoever the new Senate Senate president is. that's just one. speaker-1: Well you know what the w the good news is it will be deposited in July and we don't meet it until at eat at least January or March before we start passing bills. So it'll be it the check will have cleared long before we ever meet and could do anything with it. speaker-0: gosh. Doug, what are some of the other parts of the triumph bill? is is is is were there still the set aside for the counties that you you were talking about a couple of weeks ago? speaker-1: We did but we expanded it that the county is really going the county commissions of the eight counties are really gonna be in a position to have a hearing on the other elected officials, the cities, the other elected boards around the counties to see if they have projects that could qualify for triumph that would come under the five percent that's gonna be allocated to So we're expecting each county to be fair. We have a a very good situation in Ascambia County where we have the city of Pensacola that certainly will present some applications and I would hope that the county commission would be receptive and make sure that those have priority and they go directly to Triumph to see if they qualify for the release of the funds. Well speaker-0: We we've s the the county and the city have already gone through the restore process and I think of of the f the top ten projects there there was significant representation of city projects and the ones that they were that i they scored out well. so I I don't think I I'm like you, I don't think there's an indication. And when there's a public hearing there's always a chance for the the citizens to step up and that always has a an impact on how the commissioners look at things. so it's five percent For each county is is been set aside and then the rest is handled by triumph. speaker-1: Yeah, that'd be a hundred and eighty thousand dollars of the three hundred thousand would be handled by Triumph. And or you could like a Scambia at Santa Rosa could go in with their ten percent and join with Triumph on a big project. And we we anticipate that many of the counties are gonna group together, add their portion and try to get some big hit employers in here that will change the economy. That that was a fear that Florida's great Northwest has is had is we would miss our opportunity to get that once in a lifetime Navy federal type contract where it would take significant money to induce them to come to Florida. So we we have the ability now through Triumphs through the money they have left and the monies that will be in the counties to make that happen. speaker-0: Where Pensacola speaks on News Talk thirteen seventy WCOA, I Doug, you've been a state representative. was this a d how was this process to get triumph passed? was it was it on a scale of one to ten and ten being really, really hard, where would you put that as far as the your your efforts over the years? speaker-1: twelve. It was it was brutal because you know we kinda got the luck of a bad draw in that we have a setting governor who believes in economic development and we have a speaker who came in this year that does not believe that you stimulate the economy for economic development. And the governor's been going all over the state pointing out the the primarily the House members who have voted against his enterprise Florida. And we are in a pitch battle that continues today between the speaker and the governor. Unfortunately, Triumph got in the middle of that discussion, so we had to go and reword some of the language that was intended for for Triumph that would allow them to use the money for virtually any purpose. And the speaker insisted that we could not do that. And at the end the day, the language reflects his desire. And that was a battle that we tried to win. I think we've got good language. I think the speaker's happy with it. I think the president's happy with it. And hopefully we can get a good aggressive board that will take that language and use it to to to induce companies to come here, build infrastructure and do the things they need to do. speaker-0: we've we're Pincicloth speaks on News Talk thirteen seventy. I'm Rick Outsen, my guest is Senator Doug Broxen. Doug, what's it is the indic yeah, I guess the other worry that we've got now it's on the governor's desk d have you feel f comfortable that the governor will approve of what what y'all have passed and sign it? speaker-1: I really do. I'd I've spoken to the governor a couple of times. He's he's watched it pretty closely. he he regrets, I'm sure, that we've gotten into this debate. He knows that money's ours. He knows we won it in a lawsuit and certainly did not want to tie our hands on how we used it. He did want us to be effective and responsible and I think if you look at how Triumph is constructed in law with all the audits of sunshine, the all the other features of it but we're we're in good shape to make sure the money is spent properly and there will not be any infidelity either in the counties or through the triumph. I'm confident of that. speaker-0: Well, and I th I do think the safeguards are there. and so we'll see the money in July and then we'll see you know. now there's no excuse for the sound c cities and the counties and all the EDAs and the panhandle. They've had time to think about this. So they they should be coming with projects pretty quick, I hope. And let's get that money working for it. speaker-1: Got better better news for you. As soon as the governor signs it, the money will be transferred. So we're encouraging the governor that if he has any concerns, please let us know because we we're ready to use that money to do some really important things that's never been done in the panhandle. This is gonna be a generational change for our region if we do it right. We can use this money and leverage it with other funding from the federal government and from other entities and make that that one point five billion, three billion if we do it right. So I'm excited about it. I I think this is such a windfall. Rick, in all frankness, the BP could have paid five hundred million dollars and told the world to sue them. They didn't do that. They put up fifty five billion dollars initially and this this ball spill of April two thousand ten is going to cost them over a hundred billion dollars. And they could have walked away for five hundred thousand. We're so fortunate that it was not a a Mexico country company or a Chinese company, but it was a company that had deep pockets and was able to do that out of their profits. And so I I applaud BP for doing what was right and I applaud all of the members of our community from county commissioners to state representatives to senators to the governor to the US senators, Congressman Miller. all those folks that had a hand in making sure that Pan Hanna was taken care of. And today is a great day of celebration and hopefully when if we ever get out of session, which it looks like it's not gonna be Friday, we we're gonna celebrate some place in the Pan Hannah and let people know what a great day this really is. speaker-0: Well, Doug, congratulations. Thank you for staying the course through all of it. I know there's been a lot of pressure on you, really from the very beginning of being in the house of because of all of this. And what you've been able to do is amazing. Thank you so much. speaker-1: Well Rick, I wanna tell you you have you have brought transparency to this whole process and I give you credit also for pushing the the the issue and make sure that we did it right and so thank you for all your help and the people of of the region, including Pensacola, who stood up and said this was the right thing to do. speaker-0: Thank you so much, Doug. We'll catch up hopefully next week after you rest a little bit. All right. Take care. speaker-1: It's a speaker-0: Take care. Goodbye. State Senator Doug Broxen.