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FDOT’s $20 Million In Funding For ST Engineering Won’t Hurt Local Projects
February 18, 2019
The Florida Department of Transportation is removing $20 million in funding for two projects well outside Escambia County to contribute to the expansion of ST Engineer at the Pensacola airport.
Last week, FDOT stated in a letter to Pensacola Mayor Grover Robinson that the agency is amending funding for other unspecified projects to fulfill the $20 million, but the agency did not elaborate on exactly which projects would be cut. NorthEscambia.com reached out to FDOT for answers.
Tom Byron, FDOT assistant secretary for Strategic Development, told NorthEscambia.com in an email that the funding will come from two passenger rail related projects along Florida’s East Coast, both roughly from Jacksonville from Miami.
“There were two projects already in the pipeline for deletion,” Byron said. “…The projects being deleted are not in Escambia County.
Earlier this month, Escambia County contributed another $5 million, for a total of $15 million, to the project. The money is mostly from local option sales tax funds. The Pensacola City Council also voted to contribute another $5 million to their previous $10 million commitment.
The city also requested another $12.5 million from Triumph Gulf Coast in addition to their previously committed $56 million. The Triumph board committed to additional $10 million, $2.5 million short of the ask, for a commitment of 1,325 jobs for at least seven years.
The project includes the construction of hangers and is expected to create over 1,300 jobs.
Comments
4 Responses to “FDOT’s $20 Million In Funding For ST Engineering Won’t Hurt Local Projects”
in DIST 5 meeting last week they were asked why the tax payer pays local options sales tax and property taxes plus other fees and not get what we deserve. doesn’t matter what they say, this is stealing from the people. its time the people stand up and put a stop to this..the people really don’t matter,and the county is showing it..
This smells like the 4H land deal and the soccer complex deal.
Isn’t this entity “Triumph Gulf Coast” actually some of the
money we got from the Oil Rig Exploding ?
Yes, they were not taken from local projects. They were taken from passenger rail projects on the east coast.
But repeatedly, Mayor Robinson has been saying that the funds were coming from a pot that could only be used for “airport projects”.
Passenger rail was not an airport project.
The question this leaves is if they could divert funds from another area to a different type of project here, WHY couldn’t FDOT have diverted the $20 million to projects already on our Transportation Planning Organizations’ priorities lists?
And how does building hangars and a tarmac beyond a fenced perimeter at the airport (for a Singapore owned company) serve the pressing public TRANSPORTATION needs.
I understand the hope of future employment and that can be debated.
But the job of FDOT is public Transportation needs.