While Republicans have traditionally criticized federal subsidies to Amtrak, recently local and state Republican leaders along the Gulf Coast have promoted a revived Amtrak route as a tool for commerce and jobs.

And this approach my get support from President-elect Donald Trump.

In a report titled “Republicans Embrace Amtrak’s Gulf Coast Rebirth, Politico reporter Lauren Gardener describes how Republicans are “cheering Amtrak’s efforts to restart the Gulf Coast passenger train line that Hurricane Katrina wiped out.”

Gardener writes “the pro-transportation message of President-elect Donald Trump, who is proposing a nationwide $1 trillion infrastructure upgrade that he says would make the nation’s roads, bridges, airports and railroads “second to none” is consistent with what local leaders are supporting.

“I think we can make Amtrak work,” said Republican Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker. “We can make it more friendly to the taxpayer, and more efficient, but I think we need Amtrak, and I’ll just say it.”

Wicker believes that in addition to the transportation benefits, Amtrak’s Gulf Coast would benefit local economies by making it easier for tourists and business travelers to move through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

And he is not alone.

Mississippi Gov Phil Bryant said the “only thing we need on this Gulf Coast and in Biloxi — we have the beauty, we have that ocean, we have the most wonderful people on the planet — we just need more people.”

“You’re going to depopulate rural communities if you can’t connect them to the larger economy,” said John Robert Smith, a former Republican mayor of Meridian, Miss., who used to chair Amtrak’s board and now advocates for transit-oriented development.

Sandy Stimpson, the Republican mayor of Mobile, Ala., said providing money for rail is “part of the federal government’s obligation to address transportation.”

Politico reported that Stimpson, the Mobile mayor, wants to use a recently awarded $14.5 million federal grant to pay for bike lanes, crosswalks and other features to help connect a low-income neighborhood to jobs at the city’s aviation manufacturing hub, with any leftover money possibly going to efforts to construct a downtown trail system.

But federal money is still essential, said Stimpson, who’s wary about how much money his city might be asked to kick in to ensure Amtrak trains can stop there.

Last February 18th and 19th the Southern Rail Commission (SRC) ran an inspection train from New Orleans to Jacksonville as part of a plan to restore passenger rail service between New Orleans and Orlando.

The trained carried members of the Tallahassee City Commission and Leon County Commission among industry representatives and other community leaders.

In June 2016, the Tallahassee City Commission adopted a resolution supporting restoration of passenger rail service between New Orleans, Louisiana and Orlando, Florida, with a designated stop in Tallahassee, Florida.

The resolution was based on the belief that passenger rail service to the eastern Gulf Coast would  facilitate job creation, enhance tourism, and reduce environmental and roadway impacts due to personal automobile use.

In September 2016, TheHill.com reported the SRC working group told lawmakers it is making significant progress in its efforts, but still has to identify cost estimates and possible funding solutions.

The group also told lawmakers that it prefers a daily, overnight long-distance train between New Orleans and Orlando that would operate as an extension of the Chicago-to-New Orleans route. It also would support an additional, daily state-supported train operating round-trip between New Orleans and Mobile, Ala.

In December 2016, the SRC announced more than $2 million in allocations through the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to 11 communities in three southern states that are making plans for restored and improved Amtrak service.

A total of 11 grants will be awarded to communities in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. The commission worked with the states’ congressional delegations, the FRA, host railroads and Amtrak to pursue the federal funds to restore the rail service in the three states, according to the SRC press release.

However, the future of Amtrak on the Gulf Coast comes back to the long-term financial viability of the operation.

As Politico reports, lawmakers skirmish every year over Amtrak’s appropriations, causing supporters to consider it a victory just to avoid cuts to its $1.4 billion annual appropriation.

So for Amtrak, the Gulf Coast is a crucial test. If it fails here, it would lose an opportunity to take hold in a region whose population is expected to boom, as well as a chance to expand its political appeal.

“I think the more that we show that we can run a safe, financially responsible railroad, the more likely it is that people of both political parties will be supportive of it,” Amtrak board Chairman Anthony Coscia said.

The most immediate task is to prove that Gulf Coast service can be cost-effective.

The Best-Performing Cities index, compiled since 1999, uses a comprehensive, fact-based set of criteria to rank 200 large and 201 small metros across the United States. As an outcomes-based index, growth in employment, wages and technology output are heavily weighted; metrics such as cost-of-living and quality-of-life conditions, often highly subjective, are not included.

The Tallahassee MSA came in at 172 in 2016 down from 158 in 2015.

The 2016 rankings for the Florida cities included in the study are shown below.

The table shows the 17 cities with the respective rankings for 2015 and 216 with the ranking change. Over the last two years, Tallahassee has ranked last when compared to other Florida cities.

Robert Trigaux, the business writer for the Tamp Bay Times recently wrote about Tampa’s favorable rankings:

Why do we care if we are 33rd this year? Because the trajectory has been up seven years straight. These are not static changes. Every one of those 200 metro areas is striving to do better, to out-compete its peers.

Rising so quickly as Tampa Bay has is testament to the improved Florida economy but also points to the local efforts at economic gains achieved over time.

Tampa Bay’s ranking this year is the highest it has been since 2005, when this metro market ranked 25th by Milken in that year’s metro survey.

That’s an impressive comeback, one that underpins the growing confidence in this metro area’s broader business community. Unemployment is down. Tourism remains strong. A construction boom is under way from the downtowns of St. Petersburg and Tampa to southern Hillsborough north to Wesley Chapel.

And new companies with major league names like Johnson & Johnson and Citigroup are expanding here while up-and-coming area firms from CareSync and BlueGrace Logistics are winning strong investment backing and aggressively adding jobs.

Tallahassee’s position at the bottom of the Milken Institute’s rankings has not always been the case. From 2002 through 2007 Tallahassee was ranked in the top 100, reaching 28 in 2003. From 2008 through 2011 Tallahassee managed to stay in the top 125. However, in 2012 Tallahassee began to majorly slide down in the rankings.

In 2012 Tallahassee moved from 126 in 2011 to a ranking of 192. This was followed by a rankings of 194 in 2013, 194 in 2014, 158 in 2015 and 172 in the latest rankings.

Mr. Trigaux wrote that Tampa’s gains “points to the local efforts at economic gains achieved over time.”

Given Tallahassee’s recent trend, Tallahassee’s performance over the last ten years should be a wake-up call for local leaders.

About the Milken Institute

The Milken Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank determined to increase global prosperity by advancing collaborative solutions that widen access to capital, create jobs and improve health. It does this through independent, data-driven research, action-oriented meetings and meaningful policy initiatives.

Mr. Dobson’s article was based on his coverage of a recent Village Square event entitled “Created Equal: A conversation about race and founding ideals and our hometown.”

In his article about the event, Mr. Dobson cites national incidents of racism in Chicago and Minnesota and refers to facebook comments to support his conclusion that race is “an issue too wide to get our arms around.”

There was very little in Mr. Dobson’s article about race and “our hometown.”

I thought, “why hold an event on local issues of race and not discuss local issues of race?

My view is that local leaders, entrenched institutions – including the local media – choose not to address local issues affecting race in fear of upsetting the local power structure.  A power structure made up of exclusively progressive Democrats, including African-Americans.

Asking race questions of these leaders – face to face – can be uncomfortable.

Challenging the status-quo with people you see every Sunday at church is difficult.

Putting powerful people on the spot might not get your phone call returned when you need a quote.

Mr. Dobson wrote there is “plenty for us to ponder”, but then he chose to write about the incidents at a Trump rally in Chicago and a racist marketing technique used by a restaurant in Minnesota.

What about Tallahassee?

It is much easier for a writer to stoke the issue of race by referring to incidents far away from Tallahassee, like Chicago and Minnesota, than to pose difficult questions here at home.

Why not ask  City Commissioners why they continue to support a regressive fire services fee that removes millions of dollars from African-American neighborhoods? The same type of regressive fire service fee which was voted down in Lakeland, Florida when the NAACP and others asked questions.

Why not ask the County and the City why some on the southside are still not connected to central sewer?

Why not question  School Board members about their votes on policies over the last five years that have resulted in D’s and F’s for southside schools?

When the Mayor of Tallahassee says we are rapidly growing jobs and a national report shows Tallahassee ranks at the bottom  in job growth, why not ask him about the disconnect?

These type of questions continue to go unasked and unanswered, year after year.

Mr. Dobson wrote “The forum served its purpose of bringing people together for a few hours to discuss an issue that is hard to address. Nobody went there hoping to find solutions.”

The bottom line is a lot of people are not looking for solutions. They are looking for affirmation from people that think the way they do. They are searching for a warm fuzzy “you are doing a great job.”

For decades leaders have talked and talked. The lack of action by our local leaders has now redefined our community. Inaction has ramifications and the hard data confirms those ramifications.

We are number one in the state in crime rate, a number of studies show we are one of the most economically segregated communities in the United States, and job growth on the southside does not exist.

No matter how uncomfortable, it is time for community leaders -like Mr. Dobson – to focus on Tallahassee, not Chicago and Minnesota.

Leon county led the state in per capita crime in 2014. See our previous report here.

In contrast to the Leon County trend, the data shows that crime decreased in Florida when compared to the same time period during 2014.

For the first half of 2015, the state of Florida experienced a 2.2% decrease in the crime index. The crime index measures all crimes.

The overall decrease in the state was lead by declines in property crimes like burglary and larceny.

Violent crimes, which include murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault increased by 2.2%

For Leon county, the crime index increased 5.1% during the first six months of 2015 over same period in 2014. Both property crimes and violent crimes increased in Leon county.

Violent crimes increased by 15.2%. This category was led by a 32% increase in rapes from 102 incidents in 2014 to 134 incidents in 2015.

Property crimes in Leon county increased by 3.3%. This category was lead by a 25.5% increase in motor-vehicle theft. In 2014 there were 357 motor-vehicle thefts compared to 448 motor-vehicle thefts in 2015.

The Leon County motor-vehicle theft rate  increased three times faster than at the state-level, which increased by 8.2%.

Listed below are crime rate changes in five North Florida counties and the state of Florida.

The table can be sorted by clicking on columns.

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The table shows that Leon county is ranked second among the North Florida  group in the total crimes category and is ranked first in violent crimes.

Cure Violence was in Tallahassee last week holding meetings to promote an community based approach that reduces gun violence. The program costs approximately $350,000 a year, with $75,000 going to Cure Violence.

The problems detailed in the AP report highlight both financial and operational issues with the CeaseFire program which is overseen by Cure Violence.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel opted not to renew a one-year, $1 million contract for CeaseFire programs in two neighborhoods. The decision followed criticism by Chicago police that CeaseFire staff weren’t sharing information or working closely enough with them. Some program members also were getting into trouble of their own.

AP reported that more than 12 programs have shut down in Chicago and in other Illinois communities.

In addition, a proposal has been made by the Governor of Illinois to cut $3 million in state funding from the programs to help balance the state budget.

Advocates argue the programs work and need to be funded.

“Our kids in our communities are still dying,” said Autry Phillips, executive director of Target Area Development, a nonprofit agency on Chicago’s South Side that had to end its CeaseFire program. “We’re going to do what we can do, but we need funding. That’s the bottom line.”

Monday morning we read that these leaders were wandering Pearl Street and peering into the windows of locally owned coffee shops, breweries and stores.

And then a report by two Harvard professors, published in the New York Times, which indicates Leon County ranks low for income mobility for children in poor families, hit the mobile devices of the delegation.

Leon County Chairman, Mary Ann Lindley, responded by telling the Tallahassee Democrat “we have our work cut out for us in improving life.”

The report shows that Leon County ranks better than only 13% of the 2,478 counties included in the study when it comes to providing opportunity for poor children to move up the economic ladder.

Boulder County, home to Boulder, Colorado ranked better than 77% of all counties.

What should be shocking to the local Tallahassee elected leaders in Boulder was that the report concluded  “The main lesson of our analysis is that intergenerational mobility is a local problem, one that could potentially be tackled using place-based policies.” (Page 42 of original report, emphasis added)

Why do some areas of the U.S. exhibit much higher rates of upward mobility than others?

The study concluded that there were five categories that exhibit the strongest relationship with mobility: racial demographics, segregation, income inequality, school quality, social capital, and family structure. The correlations are shown in the chart below. Click on chart to enlarge.

Within the categories the strongest single variable correlated with mobility was the percentage of children living in single-parent households. The higher the number of single parent households, the less income mobility.

In fact there was no category that had a stronger correlation to income mobility than the family structure category, which also included divorce rates (negative correlation) and two parent families (positive correlation).

The social capital category also showed strong correlation with income mobility. One measure of social capital, using voter turnout statistics and other measures of community involvement, had a positive and strong relationship with income mobility.

The study also considered two other proxies for social capital: the percentage of religious individuals (based 39 on data from the Association of Religion Data Archives) and the rate of violent crime (using data from the Uniform Crime Report).

The findings indicate that religiosity is strongly positively correlated with upward mobility, while crime rates are negatively correlated with mobility.

The New York Times article is here. The complete study is available here.

There is the report on per capita income , which shows that from 2011 to 2013 per capita income growth has been negative in Leon County and ranks 66 out 67 Florida counties.

Now comes a national report published by economists at CareerBuilder that shows Tallahassee rates as the third worst labor market out of 150 markets evaluated.

The methodology used to develop the Labor Market Index is comprehensive. The index combines 11 historical, current, and leading indicators and groups them in four categories:

• Overall employment change over four time periods (2001-2014, 2010-2014, 2013-2014, 2014-2020), with the two most recent time periods weighted more heavily in the index.
• Quality employment change over the same four periods; this category includes growth in driver industries and in growing occupations that pay at or above each metro’s living wage for two adults, one child.
• The change in unique (or de-duplicated) job postings from May 2014 to October 2014.
• Each metro’s unemployment rate.

Tallahassee ranks 131 in the employment change category and 149 in the quality employment change category. These rankings result in a combined ranking of 148 for Tallahassee out the 150 markets evaluated.

Click on the chart below to see the bottom 15 cities.

Four of the top 22 metros are in Florida, led by Port St. Lucie—a metro that ranks No. 7 in quality employment thanks to growth in well-paying, concentrated industries like offices of physicians and new car dealers. However, Florida also has three of the bottom 10 metros among the largest 150: Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville (last at No. 150), Tallahassee (No. 148), and Pensacola-Ferry Pass-Brent (No. 143).

Other low-tier Florida metros include Ocala (No. 130), Lakeland-Winter Haven (No. 127), Jacksonville (No. 103), and Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormand Beach (No. 100).

Florida’s largest metros—Miami, Orlando, and Tampa—fall in the middle of the ranking, between Nos. 70 and 84.

The full report with city rankings can be read here.

The newspaper business, fueled by a near monopoly over local advertising for so long, has had to make drastic changes to the way they operate.

Without much, if any competition in reporting local news, many newspapers have been free to focus on their bottom line at the expense of paying attention to their main mission – journalism. In other words, newspapers were faced with advertising competition, but not by news reporting competition.

I remember in the early 1990’s when major state newspapers would send a gaggle of reporters to cover the decisions of the Florida Public Service Commission, which sets water and electric rates for much of the state.
That has since changed. As recently as five years ago, consumer advocates where begging reporters to cover conflict of interest issues at the Florida Public Service Commission.

Now we see major newspapers in the state of Florida not competing for a scoop, but collaborating to save money. The Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times have developed a partnership “to help you find the truth in politics” and they share reports on each others blogs.

While these newspapers have been able to collaborate as a way to cut expenses, others have had to make different decisions.
And that brings us to Tallahassee.

Our local newspaper, faced with the economic realities of the media business, has no one to collaborate with to cut expenses.
Instead, smaller media market newspapers, like our local paper, have had to go in a different direction. This direction includes cutting staff in the news room, charging for online access and catering to major advertisers.
In my view, these decisions have not been good for local news coverage.

Reduced local staff not only results in less reporting, but less investigating. Online pay walls mean more money to the Gannett Corporation, but less access for the citizens of Tallahassee. And catering to major advertisers, when your major advertisers are local governments, can easily blur the line between journalistic integrity and the quest for the almighty dollar.
These changes have resulted in the deterioration of the mission of the local media – investigative reporting and holding local elected leaders accountable. It appears that the desire for corporate profits at the local newspaper have turned a blind eye to the true mission of journalism.

I believe it is time for local news competition and that competition is Tallahassee Reports.
Tallahassee Reports, which started over five years ago as an online blog, has been working to expand local news coverage by exploring partnerships with radio and local TV stations. These experiments have helped define what works and have identified new opportunities.

Tallahassee Reports, the print edition, is the latest move to get more people informed about local government decisions and actions that would otherwise go unreported.
Thanks to concerned citizens and the cooperation of local news outlets, Tallahassee Reports has broke stories that have had a real impact on local government.

From deferred compensation, to the ADE story, to Honeywell and smart meters, and now the latest, the Brew Pub at Cascades Park, Tallahassee Reports has a track record of providing important information to the citizens of this community.

Now tens of thousands of Leon County citizens will have free access to a proven news source. Our goal is simple: provide investigative reports on local government issues and detailed analysis on the status of the local business climate to as many readers as possible.

Total crashes increased from 377 before implementation to 509 after implementation. More specifically, rear-end crashes increased from 231 to 360, while right angle crashes decreased from 23 before implementation to 15 after implementation.

City Staff will report to City Commissioners that, “while rear-end crashes may increase, the overall crash harm to the victims is significantly reduced with the installation of red light cameras because rear-end crashes tend to be less severe than right-angle crashes which tend to occur when someone runs a red light.”

City Staff reported that the number of overall injuries from accidents decreased from 90 to 58. However, City staff did not provide any details on the nature of the injuries suffered in the crashes or the number of injuries associated with right angle crashes.
[table id=15 /]

The City of Tallahassee began a Red Light Camera Safety Program on July 1, 2010. Currently, there are 19 red light safety cameras in operation at seven intersections within the City.

Over the three year period of operation the City issued 20,122 violations in 2011, 16,632 in 2012, and 16,386 in 2013.

As of Sept. 2013, the City has collected approximately $6.3 million in fines. However, only $487,000 of the $6.3 million stayed in Tallahassee. Just under $3 million went to the vendor ACS and $3.2 million went to the state of Florida. The remaining $487,000 was transferred to the City’s General Fund.

City Staff indicates that the focus of the program is to reduce the number of right angle crashes and thus reduce the number of injuries.

Is the program cost-effective in avoiding right angle crashes and injuries?

The reduction in right angle crashes from 23 to 15 translates into approximately $787,000 in fines to avoid each right angle crashes and the reduction in injuries from 90 to 58, translates into approximately $196,875 in fines to avoid each injury.

To calculate a more definitive cost-effective assessment, data on the cost of the injuries and the crashes would have to be made available.

The City Staff reported that “the City of Tallahassee does not have plans to expand the Red Light Camera Safety Program.  City staff will continue to monitor the program and review violation data from the existing cameras to determine if any changes are needed.”

The chart shows that during the last recession, labeled the Great recession, there was 25 months of jobs decline. The chart notes that after 42 months, the US economy has yet to reach the pre-recession level of employment.

How does this trend compare to other recessions? The chart shows that next longest period required to reach pre-recession employment levels was 21 months and that occurred after the 1990-191 recession. The quickest recovery took place after the 1980 recession. However, that recession also had only 4 months of decline in employment.

If you look at the relationship between the number of months jobs declined and the number of months for full recovery, you find that recoveries took less than twice the number of decline months in all instances except for the 1990-1991 recession. That recession took just over two times the number job decline months to recover.

The 1981-1982 recession had a strong recovery. That recession had 17 months of decline in employment, but only took 11 months to reach pre-recession levels. The same could be said for the 2001-2003.
What implications do these findings have for the current recovery? Based on the metric of two times the months of decline in jobs, we still have another 8 months or so before the Great Recession would surpass the weak recovery of the 1990-1991 recession.

Given this national picture of recovery, what can be concluded about what is happening in Florida and, more specifically, what is happening in cities across the state.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is tracking the recovery of jobs for states and metro areas. The data compiled for Florida based on data available through August 2013 is listed in a chart to the right.

The chart shows the percentage of jobs lost in the Great Recession on the left side and the percentage of jobs created since the recovery began. For example, at the bottom of the chart you can ascertain that Florida, as a state, had a decline of 11.4% in employment, and as of August 2013, has recovered 5.6 percent of those jobs. This means Florida has recover approximately half of the jobs lost during the recession.

The chart clearly shows how uneven this recovery has been across Florida metro areas. For example, a number of metro areas have recovered over half of the jobs that were lost in the recession. Metro areas at the top of this list include Naples, Tampa-St.Pete, and Gainesville.

Under performers, those metro areas with less than 25% recovery of employment include Panama City, Daytona, Lakeland, and Melbourne.

Where is Tallahassee? The chart indicates that the Tallahassee metro area lost 9.3% of their jobs during the recession and has recovered approximately 30% of those jobs.

The CRA has been involved with a number of projects in the news lately. These include College Town, several projects on Gaines Street, the Brew Pub in Cascades Park and two Gateway projects.

Until recently, the CRA had three positions fully funded by the CRA and two positions jointly funded by the CRA and the City of Tallahassee.  The three positions funded by the CRA were the Program Director, the Community Redevelopment Coordinator and the Administrative Specialist II.  The CRA also partially funded two positions that also provided services directly to the City.  These were the CRA Executive Director (25 percent funded by the CRA), who also served as the Director of the City’s Department of Economic and Community Development; and the Senior Community Redevelopment Planner (80 percent funded by the CRA), who helped manage several City incentive programs, such as the Historic Property Grant and Loan Program.

With the establishment of the CRA as a stand-alone City department starting in FY 2014, the CRA will now fully fund four positions.  The Community Redevelopment Coordinator position has been eliminated for FY 2014.

With the structural change also comes an increase in CRA expenditures for personnel and administrative activities. These expenses will increase from $352,000 in 2012 to just over $734,000 in 2014. Personnel expenses alone will increase from $311,000 in 2012 to $558,000 in 2014.

The total proposed 2014 budget for the CRA is just over $2.2 million. Funding for the CRA comes from City of Tallahassee and Leon County property taxes for those properties located in the CRA districts.  The funds generated within each redevelopment district can only be spent within the district in which they are collected.

Of the $2.2 million budget, approximately $1.35 million comes from Leon County property tax and approximately $800,000 comes from City property tax.

The CRA is scheduled to vote on this proposal on Monday, September 23rd.

Mr. D’Alemberte, a lawyer, former politician, former president of FSU, and writer of the ballot initiative that created the Florida Ethics Commission, shared his thoughts on ethics in government. He stated he wasn’t sure if the creation of the Florida Commission on Ethics “was worth the effort.” He agreed it was a toothless tiger used by some to pursue political objectives.

D’Alemberte cautioned the city about creating a local ethics commission, but recommended increased financial disclosure. He said he believes in “wide disclosure” and commented that not much is required by the state of Florida.

He also recommended that an independent person should have a “comprehensive sit down” with elected officials about business relationships and what is expected.

Debbie Lightsey, who served as a city commissioner for 21 years, followed D’Alemberte and talked about how she had tried to increase disclosure requirements in 1998 because the state form “was a sham.” She was then, and is now, concerned about elected officials cashing in on land deals and undisclosed partnerships. She recommended disclosure forms that listed sources of incomes and were updated during the year to reflect new ownership interests.

Alluding to the Mayor Marks ethics issues, Lightsey stated that those with complicated financial relationships, such as lobbyists and lawyers, should be expected to disclose those relationships, despite client confidentiality.

The meeting concluded with a discussion about what financial forms are currently required, the impact of increasing disclosure requirements, and how the public can get access to financial disclosure forms.

The next meeting of the Ethics Advisory Panel is March 14^th, 2013.