HB 218 is put on life support until next year. A sincere thanks to Sen. Alex Johnson for doing what he & GDEcD felt was in the best interest of Ga.

In a 2-26-05 post entitled "HB 218. - It's time for the Cracker Squire to move onto other topics of more general interest," I wrote:

"Short of some major development with regard to HB 218, I am going to quit doing so many posts about it."

That development came Wednesday, when Senate President Pro Tem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) announced that the bill should not move forward this year. This is tantamount to announcing the bill dead for this session.

Since the bill will not see the light of day this session, I am going to once again say what I noted in my 2-70-05 and 2-21-05 posts; "HB 218 is not GOP legislation. Rather it is legislation for all Georgians and for economic development in all of Georgia."

In a nutshell -- despite all of the bad things you have read about giveaways and incentives that most of the Other Georgia does not have to give away -- what HB 218 primarily amounts to with respect to development authorites is limited to the following:

When a local development authority is working to attract a business or industry, it would not have to reveal the name of the business or industry being wooed until it has a commitment or the attempt falls through. In practice, this means that the development authority can go into executive session for the authority's leader to inform the authority members about the status of a project the authority is working on.

Sounds simple. It is simple, but from the perspective of the business or industry being recruited, it is crucial.

An amendment that had been planned before the bill was tabled would have made HB 218 applicable just to the state, and thus would not apply to development authorities unless the Georgia Department of Economic Development ("GDEcD") was involved in working with the local authority, the foregoing being the subject of my 2-24-05 post entitled "Amendment to be offered in the Senate to HB 218 will be somewhat of a disappointment for development authorities in the Other Georgia."

Given the public frenzy that followed the media's success in making this bill so controversial, the state Senate -- and by this I mean individual senators who are accountable to their constituents -- would have been ill-advised to passed this legislation this session.

But even with all of this frenzy and negative publicity, one person stood his ground.

I want to state publicly that I appreciate Sen. Eric Johnson for not folding under the intense public pressure for something he felt was in Georgia's best interest, something that GDEcD requested that the General Assembly pass, and something that the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia and the Georgia Municipal Association -- along with the 895 local development authorities in Georgia -- strongly supported.

As the Senate President Pro Tem stood his ground and took the hits from the media, the Head Hawk (and as of recently the wannabe Head Vet) let him take the hits alone, as the Senator from Savannah was left to slowly twist in the wind.

In the words of a 3-05 AJC article by Jim Tharpe:

"One voice all but missing from the fracas, however, is that of Gov. Sonny Perdue.

"Perdue has said through a spokesman that he supports House Bill 218, but noted that it's not part of his legislative agenda. The Republican governor repeatedly has declined requests for an interview on the topic."

At least the Gov. can be glad he does not live in the days of Helen of Troy. Then Sparta, a Greek city-state, upon defeating another city-state, would reward those who had supported Sparta, exile those who had opposed it, and execute those who had remained neutral.

For his failure in leadership and his unwillingness to take a stand along side Sen. Johnson on legislation that his state Economic Development Department requested, the Gov.'s days would be numbered (if they were not already).

Unfortunately for Georgia, it will remain at a disadvantage in recruiting industry compared with our sister states, the foregoing being more aptly described as our competition when it comes to recruiting industry. Without question, not having such legislation will cost Georgia jobs in the future, regardless of the inability of the state recruitment fellows inability in citing chapter and verse, something I have done in this blog.

And Douglas and Coffee County, how will we be impacted? Not much, I imagine. First, we are rather experienced and successful in recruiting industry as the folks at GDEcD will tell you. And second, we generally have a friendly press. As I noted in my first post on this topic, if our press ever disclosed the name of a prospect when we asked that they not, they would get "tar and feathered (and possibly quartered) and run out of the state, or at least to 'the' Georgia."

But much of the rest of the Other Georgia needs all of the help it can get. And with respect to the state, it is most unfair to those who work so hard at the state level with the GDEcD to work on recruiting a business and industry with one of its hands tied behind its back.