THE PCDA BOARD OF TRUSTEES...met yesterday and handled a lot of business,  including newest Trustee Nancy Rathbun handling the important task of teaching Hizzoner Mayor Nicholson how to properly do a high five, (fingers together). With that accomplished, the Trustees then grilled the staff on an issue and deferred action on that business because they just were not getting the answers they needed/wanted to their questions. You'll read about that in the Ponca City News but we simply can't wait to tell you that they heard that PCDA talked to 21 new companies in February. Nor can we resist reporting that there were 141 contacts with local Ponca City companies, six with site consultants, 30 with our partners who do so much, ask so little, and generally make us look good, and 31 with those zany, crazy folks in guvment. At the end of the month, short as February is, there were 13 active economic development projects with a potential job count of 628 jobs. February tends to be a bust month in economic development as companies in snow bound areas use their indoor time to think about their future and companies in places with perfect weather, such as Ponca City, just continue to...you get the idea.       

THE GUV SAYS "HEY"...PCDA was at the state Capitol on Wednesday for Economic Development Day, meeting with Governor Fallin, Kay County's Vaughan, Fields and Pfieffer, and others. Big PCDA guns were brought into play in the persons of PCDA Chair Kelly Johnson and Trustee Natalie Fraser. Here's why: You likely know that the state is trying to plug a $611 million hole. You're also smart enough to realize that means that everyone is throwing each other under the bus to get "their" share of the pie, or preserve their share of the pie. No doubt you know that economic development incentives are a big part of the conversation. Here is what you may not know. The way the state budget discussions are structured, the budgeters simply assume that all jobs created through the use of economic development incentives would have been created here anyway, so the money is nothing more than an expense. That makes it look like there is a big pot of money that can be diverted. Only on paper, not in the real world. Economic development incentives are "but for" line items that would significantly impact available revenues if they went away. The issue is a lot more than just deciding whether or not to put gas in the car or change the oil. What it really comes down to is do you have a car (tax revenue) in the first place? No doubt the legislators have a challenge because obviously the services paid for including education, public safety and, yes, future state revenues though economic growth require investments. PCDA's role on Wednesday was not to tell them what to do, there are plenty of helpful people doing that. Our goal was to help them understand how it all fits together so that five years from now there is money for education, public safety and so forth.