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County support sways factory to stay
By BRIDGET HALL GRUMET © St. Petersburg Times, published November 4, 2000 INVERNESS -- The day started with the bleak news that Pro-Line Boats was seriously considering building its new factory outside Citrus County, but by Friday afternoon, county officials had persuaded the boatmaker to stay. What changed? Pro-Line vice president Johnny Walker said he finally got the assurances he needed that the county supports his company's plans to build a 100,000-square-foot factory in Holder. "I've been in touch with several people from the county and several local businesses, and I'm more optimistic today," Walker said Friday afternoon. "The (Pro-Line) board of directors has given their commitment to go forward if we can take care of these nagging problems we seem to be having." Those problems include a $250,000 grant application that has stalled short of a County Commission vote three times because of missing financial information. Walker said he believes he can get the missing information, a letter from the county auditor attesting to Pro-Line's profitability, by Monday, in time to put the item on the County Commission's agenda for Nov. 14. "We need to get this EDC grant resolved and taken care of and put to bed so we know we have the support," Walker said. The Economic Development Council designed the grant program, which rewards businesses $2,000 for each new job they create paying 110 percent of the industry average wage. The EDC has recommended Pro-Line's application for approval, but the County Commission delayed voting on it because it was always missing information. "I never wanted Pro-Line to leave in the first place. It's not an issue of whether we want Pro-Line to stay or go," Commissioner Vicki Phillips said. "The whole point has been you need a complete application." "We're ready to go forward, but we have to have a complete application," added Commissioner Jim Fowler. "This application is a product of the EDC . . . and it's their job to make it complete." Instead of relying on the EDC to present its application to the County Commission, Pro-Line may present the application itself, which would address the reservations that County Commissioner Gary Bartell originally had about the grant program. "I had a lot of concerns about it going through the EDC because of their track record with accountability," Bartell said. "If it comes directly from Pro-Line to the Board of County Commissioners, we are directly responsible, and I have more of a comfort level that it will be done properly." Bartell said despite his concerns about the EDC, he has always supported Pro-Line's plans to build a factory in Holder, which would create 200 new jobs, meet the raised standards of the Environmental Protection Agency and anchor an industrial park. Bartell said on Friday he spoke with Walker and Lewis Ranieri, one of the main stockholders in American Marine Holdings, Pro-Line's parent company, to voice his support. Brett Wattles, EDC interim executive director, said he had no problem with Pro-Line presenting the grant application for itself. As long as the EDC was presenting Pro-Line's grant application, he said, the boatmaker would come into the cross-fire between the EDC and its detractors. "Let's get politics where it needs to be, and solve the differences that people might have with the EDC in the proper forum," Wattles said. "Everybody wants this deal to be done for the benefit of the workers and this community, so if (Pro-Line presenting its own application) is what needs to happen in this deal, so be it." There was an immediate danger that Pro-Line could leave, Wattles told the EDC executive board on Friday, because another Florida county had offered a site with a deep-water port and a 120,000-square-foot building that was ready for Pro-Line to move in before the end of the year. Interim County Administrator Richard Wesch said later in the day that the site was in Brevard County. "What this county stands to lose is a developed industrial park, and people who are going to lose their jobs (if Pro-Line leaves)," Wattles said. "That's a big hit anywhere, and it's a really big hit in Citrus County." By the day's end, however, Wattles said he was relieved to hear the news that Pro-Line planned to stay. "When I left (the EDC meeting Friday morning), I thought it was over," he said. "But a ray of sunshine has entered in at the end of the day."
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