The Greater Pensacola Chamber of Commerce has set up an email address for members of the public that wish to make project submissions for Triumph Gulf Coast. The email address is Triumph@pensacolachamber.com and there is currently no deadline for project submissions. Later this year, the Chamber’s Policy Committee will review submissions and announce project recommendations to the Triumph Gulf Coast Board of Directors.
Triumph Gulf Coast is a nonprofit corporation created by the Florida Legislature to administer funds recovered by the Attorney General for economic damage to the state resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The corporation was directed to create and administer a trust or “recovery fund†for the benefit of the eight counties disproportionately affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Per state law, the principal of the fund is derived from seventy-five percent of all monies received from the settlement. The first payment of $400 million has been received by the state of Florida, meaning $300 million is due to be distributed to Triumph Gulf Coast. Legislation has been filed in both chambers of the Florida Legislature to further clarify the intent of the monies received by Triumph Gulf Coast.
The Fox; Chamber of Commerce “ aka†Good Old Boys; just put themselves in charge of guarding the hen house, or projects for Escambia County that will ONLY benefit the money folks, not the average citizen of Escambia County… Wow, I was lead to believe that Escambia County Board of Supervisors would be the authority in charge. Ok, environment, you just got shut ‘out’. Forget about quality of water, soil, and clean air. Instead, we could all be subjected to more air and water pollution, road projects that will increase road use and foul air, and lots more dirty dumps for construction waste in poor areas
What the two-county “Greater Pensacola” area lacks but could use is a new mega-airport designed from the start to support aviation manufacturing and with runways long-enough to accommodate much bigger aircraft. A partial example is what was done in Bay County where they closed the municipal airport in the city near by home and built a much bigger airport far removed from the urban center. We could, should and I think eventually will build a truly “international” airport – The Greater Pensacola International Airport – with two very=long North-South and two very-long East=West runways , easy access to I-10 and areas custom-designed to support aviation manufacturing. The airport could include an area suitable for a Florida Air National Guard unit (perhaps a squadron equipped with the F-35) and with another area purpose-built to support general aviation. The state might even be able to tap into federal dollars if there is a massive infrastructure spend plan.