Their strategy is clear–delay voting on economic development as long as possible in hopes of building a ground swell against the Chamber. Yes, against the Chamber, not for Commissioner Valentino’s vague proposal.
It’s clear in Valentino’s comments that his issue is with the Chamber. A very divisive political move at time when we are trying to attract Southwest Airlines to our airport. Remember it was the Chamber who led the charge to create $2 million travel bank that got us AirTran.
Creating a “Straw man” is an old political strategy – It calls for misrepresenting an opponent’s view to refute the opponent’s position. Valentino is making the Chamber the enemy. How does this help our community?
Today, Mort O’Sullivan was the true statesman. He looked for common ground, offered solutions and tried to build consensus. The Chamber plan brought in some of the best business leaders in our community to figure how to improve economic development.
Commissioner Valentino did none of this. He said that he had consensus plan that was based on his “listening to the community” but didn’t tell us what that consensus plan is. He continued to attack the Chamber.
Valentino’s experts talked about focusing on talent and the creative class – which is what the Chamber has been most successful in doing just that with iTen Wired, Gulf Coast Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Lambda Rail, Strategic Health Intelligence Summit and the NWFL Defense Coalition.
The delay strategy might work – however, we are seeing no ground swell developing for Gene Valentino. The risk for GV is that his Sunshine Law and email issues might lead to a grand jury investigation before he gets his way on economic development.