What are our county leaders doing for us.

[Smiling JOe]

The flip side is that you then have more non-transients in the area making higher salaries who are better able to support local restaurants and businesses year round, even with moderately higher prices.

As for current restaurant prices, they really aren't that high in a lot of cases. A Red Bar lunch of fish sandwich and fries is essentially the same price as a large sub from (the now defunct) Quizno's.

But there lies the rub. If there are more people eating, there are more servers needed in most cases, and service will likely be worse, though having more diners should equate to more money for the servers. I can see your point that as more people move here for jobs, there will also be more kids who will take those service jobs.

You are right about lunch prices being reasonable. I was thinking of dinner prices, where most of my favorite places to dine start entrees at $20.

 

[Smiling JOe]

...
Many are predicting that a green or alt energy boom is what is needed to get our country's economy back on track. How do we capitalize on it in Sowal?

Mossy Head attracted that bio-diesel plant, and I understand that some sort of Hydro-carbon business was on the BCC's Agenda on Tuesday night.

 

[rapunzel]

I must ask -- if you are wondering what local leaders are doing for you, what are you doing to be involved in local leadership?

 

[florida girl]

It was stated that one major problem with exporting goods from SoWal was transportation. If we could utilize the intercoastal... we used to have a ferry across it until one person brought a lawsuit... as I remember anyway. If we had some kind of port ie "Point Washington" to load ships... Certainly we could come up with some kind of product!

 

[florida girl]

The flip side is that you then have more non-transients in the area making higher salaries who are better able to support local restaurants and businesses year round, even with moderately higher prices.

As for current restaurant prices, they really aren't that high in a lot of cases. A Red Bar lunch of fish sandwich and fries is essentially the same price as a large sub from (the now defunct) Quizno's.

Quizno's is defunct?

 

[Smiling JOe]

There are industrial zoned properties located on the intracoastal waterway, currently.

 

[florida girl]

There are industrial zoned properties located on the intracoastal waterway, currently.

Good! Then a port should be able to be built without incredible obstacles?

 

[scooterbug44]

I thought the Freeport boatyard already had a good deep water port?

 

[beachmouse]

There was recent mention of the Grand Blvd. Quizno's ceasing operations.

As for ports on Choctaw Bay, it seems that, except for the Destin Harbor area, that the water is usually relatively shallow until you get fairly far out. It probably makes the most sense to keep heavy shipping in Freeport from a geology/environmental standpoint. I remember going to a talk given by someone from the Valparaiso Heritage Museum, and she said that previous 20th century attempts at serious ports in the area (the reason a part of Shalimar is known as Port Dixie) had not really worked out because of the difficulty in finding areas that were both sheltered and deep enough.

 

[Smiling JOe]

Why would you want to have a redundancy of ports? Freeport can handle large barges, and Port Panama City is huge. It is easy enough to truck any goods to either of these locations, without great costs.