Team Volusia brings new jobs strategy

Leaders from Volusia County business and government gathered around a circular conference table at Daytona State College on Aug. 4, to try to do what their predecessors had failed to do: create an entity that uses public and private dollars to kick-start the local economy, while satisfying the desires of elected officials across this fractured county.

"You are the founding members of an organization that I predict will probably be the most powerful organization in this community for years," Daytona Beach attorney Ted Doran told the newly formed board of directors of Team Volusia Economic Development Corp.

The group, which is set to spend millions of public and private dollars to bring companies and jobs here, had voted Doran Team Volusia's first chairman moments earlier.

"We are in this to make a profit," Doran said, referring to the potential influx of dollars countywide. "This is not the United Way. This is about making money."

Whether Team Volusia will deliver on Doran's goal, and succeed where its forebears failed, is the multimillion-dollar question. The Volusia County Business Development Corp., the county's previous public-private partnership which became Enterprise Volusia in 1999, fell apart in 2001 amid accusations of secrecy, failure to reach goals and a lack of focus on western Volusia.

Team Volusia's supporters say their setup has more private support, pointing to the separate CEO Cabinet and the $1.2 million over three years it has pledged to bring business here. They say county and city officials will have more input than in the past, and where public dollars go, there will be transparency.

But if they succeed, it will be over the cynicism of a local economist, the skepticism of some leaders from West Volusia, and a cautionary voice from the past.

"The big thing was to get everybody moving in the same direction, with the same thought," said Drew Page, former president of Enterprise Volusia. "That's something we never had. I used to refer to it as the three great states of Volusia, because you had different parts of the county with different goals, and not a lot of trust."

How exactly Team Volusia's efforts will differ from those of the county's Department of Economic Development, created after Enterprise Volusia dissolved, has yet to be determined. Team Volusia still needs a president, so asking board members how Team Volusia will work is a bit like asking the owner of a football team what kind of offense it will run before he's hired a head coach.

George Mirabal, former president of the Daytona Regional Chamber of Commerce and Team Volusia's interim president, touts the countywide unity -- public and private, east and west -- behind his new organization. Team Volusia, Mirabal said, will succeed because it will get everyone moving in the same direction.

"When a prospect sees that a whole community has come together with a singular purpose, with nobody really caring who gets the credit . . . that's what private employers want to see," he said. "That's the big difference."

TRAVELING SALESMAN

Larry McKinney, Mirabal's tan, well-coifed successor at the chamber, sighed and stared blankly at the board table in Deltona City Hall as the argument continued around him last Tuesday afternoon.

McKinney has become a traveling salesman for Team Volusia this year, driving across the county to pitch involvement. Tuesday he returned to Deltona, which had soundly rejected Team Volusia under its previous name -- Metro Daytona Economic Development Corp. -- to try to convince the county's most-populated city to spend $42,000 on Team Volusia.

Western Volusia residents, who are just as likely to work in Orange and Seminole counties as they are to trek east to Daytona Beach, are often skeptical of countywide initiatives, and McKinney had his work cut out for him.

He led a brief PowerPoint presentation, stopping for a few minutes to explain a chart that showed while the average income in Volusia County has dropped from 86 percent of the U.S. average in 1980 to 81 percent in 2010, Deltona's relative average income has plummeted even more; from 88 percent in 1980 to 74 percent in 2006.

"Unless this council makes a concerted effort to change that trend, that gap is likely to get larger," McKinney, 46, said in his soft Southern drawl.

Mayor Dennis Mulder led the faction in favor of joining Team Volusia. Gaining access to Team Volusia's top-of-the-line website (McKinney projects the site, which will help site selectors at businesses explore the county, will cost $150,000 -- $200,000) would make the contribution worth it, Mulder said.

Commissioner Zenaida Denizac was less convinced, though, and turned to Phil Ehlinger, Volusia County's burly, bearded director of economic development, and angrily asked him what his department has ever done for her city.

"What have you gotten? What have you gotten for the west side?" Denizac said to Ehlinger, who sat no more than 3 feet away from her.

"We have made the statement for several years, if you have a place to put 'em, we'll bring 'em," Ehlinger calmly replied. Deltona lacks open sites for industrial and manufacturing companies, which is his office's focus. Deltona does have plenty of open retail sites, though.

Denizac crossed her arms and turned back toward her fellow commissioners. "I'm not going to support this," she said.

McKinney interrupted an argument that appeared to be heading to a stalemate with a promise that Team Volusia will work to fill Deltona's vacant retail sites. Despite Denizac's objections and the misgivings of two other commissioners, the commission decided to put Team Volusia's request for $42,000 on the agenda for Monday's meeting.

SOSKIN THE SKEPTIC

While McKinney might be able to win over Deltona commissioners, he'll never win over Mark Soskin, an economist at the University of Central Florida's Daytona Beach campus, and a longtime Ormond Beach resident. Soskin was passed over by the county to do a consultant's study on local economic development efforts in 2001, and said he thinks the county incorrectly discounted Enterprise Volusia's successes. He is decidedly cynical about Team Volusia, and economic development in general.

"Economic development is the sham to end all shams, the Ponzi scheme to end all Ponzi schemes. . .Economic development, as it is devised in the United States, does not and cannot work," Soskin said. "It is an absolute charade." More here.