Kevin Sandridge - Winter Haven Mortgage Broker

All I Want for Christmas is a Few Blog Links!

Christmas, Christmas time is here... Time for Joy and Time for Cheer! ALVIN!!!!

Yes folks, it's mistletoe wranglin time again, and I can think of no better gift to give my fellow Florida Real Estate and Mortgage Bloggers than to spread a little Holiday Link Love!

This list is by no means definitive... as I'm only now starting to locate Florida Real Estate and Mortgage bloggers to follow. Your contributions to this list will be greatly appreciated!

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Lauded as one of the biggest and most important projects in Florida to date, the controversial CSX Integrated Logistics Center project in Winter Haven, FL promised to bring nearly 8,500 jobs to our area. 

I love this city, and can't imagine living anywhere else.  However, I am becoming more and more disheartened with this CSX project  - as the promise of a new day for jobs in Winter Haven, Florida are, in light of the economy and gas prices, seeming to fade prematurely into distant memory.

Chuck Welch and Billy Townsend are two of Polk County's most astute writers, and they've done much to enlighten me and my readers about the true impacts - occupational and societal - this CSX hub project may have in store for Winter Haven and Polk County as a whole.

Jobs Impact

Comments left by Chuck and Billy on my main Florida Mortgage Blogger blog do a lot to highlight some things many local folks here may not understand.  I know I didn't - perhaps simply from not doing enough homework.  Nonetheless, I felt it important to share them here:

Chuck Welch: (Can be found at this site: Chuck Welch, Human:)

"One of my problems with this project — in addition to all the secrecy of course — is the inflated job number. On June 19, 2007 I attended a meeting with CSX officials and we had quite a discussion about the expected jobs. Here’s a part of what I wrote then:

• Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Forget the 8500 number. Pretend you never heard it, because that depends on the hub attracting many businesses, and the number isn’t for employees in Winter Haven. Try these numbers:

• Somewhere below 200. They expect the terminal to need 200 employees, but will offer present Taft Yard employees the opportunity to transfer. So, less than 200 new jobs for Winter Haven.

• 1370 temporary construction jobs for whoever builds the thing. However, most construction companies are going to bring in their own people.

• 1800 jobs for the ILC:”

Note “CSX will own the terminal, but will not develop the rest of the facilities. They’ll find someone to do that for them.” That’s the 1800. 1100 of those jobs are estimated to average $36,800 for employee compensation. That includes salary, health insurance, retirement payments, and non-cash compensation. In other words, don’t think that is near the salary. I wonder if the salary will be a “living wage?”

And don’t forget even CSX estimates give the employee numbers as after 10 years. If they materialize.

I also would remind your readers of this: “A long discussion followed where the CSX officials were asked why they had measured “growth potential, but not impact potential.” The concern was raised that CSX was offering plenty of possible job numbers based on optimistic growth, but could not supply the same numbers for impact items (trucks traveling to and from the facility for example).”

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Billy Townsend: (Can be found at this site: LakelandLocal.com)

"First, thanks, Kevin for taking the time to read and think about this. It’s hugely complicated, and it feels really good to have somebody really think and consider what Chuck and I have written.

I don’t have a huge amount to add to Chuck’s comment, given the constraints of a comment thread. I’m going to do a post tomorrow on LL that you are welcome to cross post if Chuck doesn’t mind."

A couple of quick points:

1) I think the permanent job number for the hub is down to about 70 now, (I know it’s under 100) with some portion of those jobs relocated from rail yards in Orlando and Tampa.

2) There is no second phase of the project, no high end biz park. There are no 1,800 jobs. There might be one day, but there’s no proposal of any kind now. Just trains for the hub.

3) The hub is one part of the larger CSX deal with the state. The other part is the relocation of existing freight traffic out of Orlando and onto a west Florida line that runs though Ocala, Plant City and Lakeland. The state would pay to upgrade this west Florida line so that CSX can run more trains on it. This deal is far worse than the hub by itself. It’s this deal that was defeated last session, at least temporarily. This deal has the state paying upwards of a billion dollars, through various elements of the plan, to help CSX establish its business plan in the Florida. The hub is key to that business plan, but it’s not everything.

4) With regard to #2 above, much has changed since this deal was first announced. The most prominent thing is the economy. Supporters of this sold the benefits of this whole package based on 2004-2005 growth rates of vehicle sales and consumer product container traffic and Florida population. I saw the graphs and powerpoints. All of those things have cratered, and gas is plummeting. Who knows if this is a temporary thing, or if Florida really is “over” as the Wall Street Journal reported a while back? But it does seem to me that all of the economic assumptions underpinning this deal - and that goes for skeptics and impact-worriers like me, as well - are out the window."

You can see from their comments that Chuck and Billy are very well informed about the CSX project and its inability to live up to promies made.  As Billy stated - it's a very complicated issue... and one that reaches far past our local municipalities  - all the way to the state capital.

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Lakeland, FL Officials and Merchants Opposition Derails

Lakeland city officials and a merchants group have halted their attempts to block the CSX hub.  They still feel that the increased train and truck traffic through Lakeland en route to Winter Haven will pose problems for them, but understand that there's just too much steam behind the engine on this one - so to speak.

Florida State Senator J.D. Alexander (R-Lake Wales, FL) is a staunch supporter of the CSX project and has recently been installed as the chairman of the Senate committee charged with handling the state budget.  As such, you can see where the CSX project is getting firm backing from the capital. 

Me?  I'm left with a sense of disspointment.  I wanted the CSX hub to be a great thing for Winter Haven.  It still may prove beneficial to our town, but the benefits from a county-wide standpoint do seem to favor us - leaving Lakeland to bear a tangental "load," with little to no economic gain. 

If you live in the Polk County, FL area - or just have a comment to make regarding this issue, I absolutely welcome your feedback. 

As always, I remain...

Your Friendly Florida Mortgage Blogger

It is my life's mission to help good
people achieve their Florida Home Loan
goals.  What can I do for you?

On Thursday December 4, 2008 the Department of Community Affairs Secretary Thomas Pelham approved the development order and agreement for the controversial CSX Integrated Logistics Center - a 318 acre state-of-the art facility designed to facilitate transfer of containerized consumer goods via rail and truck. Barring any further appeal, it looks like construction will begin sometime in 2009.

If this project sounds big, it is. In fact, some State officials are calling it "The Mother of All Rail Yards."

The city of Winter Haven signed a deal in September 2007 with the company and sold CSX the land for $22,000 per acre. CSX also has the option to purchase 930 acres adjacent to its currently planned site.

Some here in Winter Haven are relatively happy with this latest stage of approval, while others have clear cut issues with the CSX project and its projected benefits for the Winter Haven community.

I suppose time will tell. For me, a for sure net gain of 2,000 jobs in our town ain't bad.

Mike and Maurkice Pouncey, two former Lakeland, Florida Dreadnaught Football standouts turned phenomenal offensive linemen for the University of Florida Gators, recently returned to Lakeland on news of a family tragedy.

In prepping for this week's rivalry game against Florida State, these young men received a call that their father, Ron Webster, had been involved in an accident while working at the Lakeland Cash Feed Company - resulting in the loss of his leg.

Webster is the twins' stepfather and married their mother Lisa Lewis when the boys were 1 year old. The two will be celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary on December 26th. But don't let Webster's stepfather status lead you to believe that he holds a lesser place in the twins' hearts.

"That's the only father we ever known, so that's our dad," said Mike Pouncey. "Our biological father, he ran out on us when we were 1. We haven't ever known anybody else to be our father."

"You have to give credit to where it's due," Maurkice Pouncey added. "That's our father. We've never seen our whatever-he-is-to-us."

I'm sure that any of you who have followed the careers of these two fine young men will agree that Mr. Webster and his wife Lisa have done a fine job raising them.

If you would like to relay your sympathies, you can most likely contact Mr. Tom Zebold, who wrote an excellent Lakeland Ledger article on this topic . I am sure that he will be willing to help you get a card or note to the family. He may be found at either tom.zebold@theledger.com or by phone at 863-802-7553

For more on this story, see my main blog. I encourage all of you who may know this family, or who live in the Lakeland or Winter Haven, FL area to send a note to them.

Today is "Black Friday." This is the day when shoppers get up at the butt crack of dawn (I'd bet there was a bit of parking lot camping going on last night, too) to take advantage of "door buster" sales and cherry pick the very best bargains.

By Black Friday, the Holiday Season is going at full bore. The voices of "Dino, Bing, and Burl" start playing steadily on the radio and the malls are solidly busy.

The origin of the name "Black Friday" is often tied to the incontrovertible fact that the heavy shopping day after Thanksgiving is when several shops are thought to become profitable. Companies once recorded losses in red ink and gains in black, a practice that lives on in modern accounting software, hence the name "Black Friday."

However, workers of retail outlets have for years used the term in a humorous way, to note the highly stressful and frenetic nature of the day.

Stress? Don't we have enough stress in our lives? Come on! I think we'd all do well to heed of the message that's been coming out of the Adbusters camp regarding "Buy Nothing Day."

Even though it is "celebrated" on the Friday following Thanksgiving Day, the movement speaks to a much larger issue than fighting against outlets who market to us twenty-four hours a day.

Now in its 17th year, Buy Nothing Day is celebrated each November by environmentalists, social activists and concerned citizens in over sixty five nations around the globe.

Over time, Buy Nothing Day (followed by Buy Nothing Christmas) has exploded into a worldwide movement, electrifying the planet's voters to live more simply and buy a lot less. In a consumption-based society, we are quickly draining the planet of its natural resources.

I get caught up in the hype as much as anyone. Heck, I drool over my brother's new Samsung 52" HDTV, and eveytime football season rolls around, it gives me yet another reason to wish he didn't live so far away in Colorado Springs, CO.

Here is an Adbusters supported video that will make you giggle. It does a good job of reminding us of how powerful media marketing can be. (Warning - it has an Alternative Rock soundtrack, and I think two particularly colorful words sung in the song - but only once each. So, put your earmuffs on!)

If shopping comes into the picture, and I'm going to try to keep that to a minimum, I will focus on supporting local merchants this year. 2 Jay's Java here in Winter Haven, Florida just started carrying a great new line of tea produced by Fine Tea USA (also based here in Winter Haven).

It's starting to become a trend, and I don't think I'm alone, but I'll take my cue from Seth Godin's recent Holiday Shopper's Guide. In the post, Seth offers the following advice: