The Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners and its Office of Economic Development will convene the 2005 Economic Summit at the Palm Beach County Convention Center on November 9 and 10. Recommendations from this two-day visioning process will serve as a springboard for a phased, multi-year update of Palm Beach County’s Strategic Economic Development Plan which will help guide the county for the next 10 to 15 years.

Attendees will hear from an array of top business and industry leaders and will have the opportunity to take part in breakout sessions geared to specific areas of economic interest: Industries of the Mind; Agribusiness, Equestrian and Food; Smart Growth and Transportation; Quality of Place; International Investment; Total Education; and Housing.

Citizens will work alongside elected officials and business experts in real estate and development, education, the cultural arts, biotechnology, information technology, agriculture, international finance, and maritime and equestrian interests to develop a shared community vision that will help ensure a strong, stable and diversified local economy.

Summit organizers are committed to sustaining Palm Beach County’s economic vitality and unique character by raising awareness of local, regional, national and international business issues, identifying specific challenges and goals, and developing an effective means of addressing them.

For several months, volunteers from the business community have been meeting regularly to prepare presentations for the Summit. The work of these subcommittees is being overseen by the Board-appointed Overall Economic Development Plan steering committee.

“Many people have devoted a great deal of time and effort to ensure a thorough exploration of our current economic conditions, identification of potential trends and challenges, and detailed, open discussion on how to best meet our goals,” said Deputy County Administrator Verdenia Baker.

To do this, the public’s involvement is essential. Please plan to attend the 21st Century Palm Beach County 2005 Economic Summit on November 9th and 10th. Advanced registration is $45; $60 at the door. Online registration is easy by logging onto www.pbcgov.com/economicsummit2005. Or call the Office of Economic Development at 561-355-3624. CUES is serving as staff to this effort.

Improved regional cooperation will better equip communities throughout Florida to stay economically competitive and maintain a high quality of life for their citizens in the face of future population growth, according to recommendations from the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Florida Initiative on Regional Collaboration. In addition, the initiative notes that such cooperation will help the state’s communities in efforts to conserve land and other natural resources.

The initiative, launched in December 2003, was created to identify what the State of Florida can do to promote regional collaboration to ensure the future economic competitiveness and livability of Florida and its communities. It aims to achieve this goal through three objectives: 1) identifying state barriers to regional cooperation; 2) forging a consensus around effective state actions and reforms that can help facilitate regional solutions; and 3) working for implementation of its recommendations on fostering regional collaboration.

ULI is an international research and education institute dedicated to responsible land use; and the Florida initiative is part of the Institute’s ongoing efforts to promote more efficient development patterns in metropolitan areas worldwide. The Florida program, funded by ULI, the Institute’s four district councils in Florida, and a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, is being directed by a statewide committee of leaders representing the development community, civic and environmental groups, community-based organizations and the public sector including CUES Director, Jim Murley.

“Florida has very distinct and different regions. To accomplish greater regional collaboration, it is important to first figure out the needs of each region and then fashion a plan that works,” said ULI Trustee Peter Rummell, committee co-chair and chairman and chief executive officer of The St. Joe Company in Jacksonville.

The effort is aimed at preparing the state’s communities for the substantial population growth they will experience in the years ahead. One of the fastest growing states in the nation, Florida is projected by the U.S. Census Bureau to incur an increase of nearly 5 million people over the next 15 years, raising the state’s population to 22.6 million by 2020. The Florida Department of Transportation estimates that between 2000 and 2030, vehicles miles traveled will increase by 103 percent. Moreover, according to the Sierra Club, seven of the nation’s 30 most “sprawl-threatened” cities are in Florida—Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, Tampa, Pensacola, Orlando, West Palm Beach and Daytona Beach.

“It is a fact of life that the state will continue to grow. If we don’t take the gigantic step and make regionalism work, forty years from now we will look back and wish we had,” said Nathaniel Reed, co-chair of the committee with Rummell and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In forming recommendations to address Florida’s rapid growth, the committee noted that virtually all issues related to metropolitan growth—including traffic congestion, housing affordability, economic development and environmental protection—pose formidable challenges that are best solved through broad regional constituencies. “Regionalism is just a word that describes working together to address mutual challenges or to take advantage of an opportunity. By participating, you’re saying we are all in the same boat, so we might as well work together for success,” said Carolyn Dekle, executive director of the South Florida Regional Planning Council.

The initiative’s recommendations, which are detailed in the full report, focus primarily on actions that can be taken at the state level to catalyze regional collaboration. They are:

• Exercise leadership—The governor must exercise leadership and an ongoing commitment to statewide regional cooperation.
• Promote regional visions and action plans—The state should enable and ensure that each region develops a regional vision and action plan to implement that vision.
• Provide state support for regional visions and action plans—The state must ensure that all state agencies function in a highly responsive and integrated way to foster and monitor regional cooperation and promote and support regional initiatives.
• Sustain and improve regional cooperation—Regional cooperation must be sustained and improved over time. The state must encourage and support, on an ongoing basis, each region’s efforts to make measurable progress toward its vision and to continue to improve regional cooperation.

“Looking at Florida’s long-term trends, it is difficult to imagine that any one governmental institution can deal effectively with regional trends. We need regional institutions charged with the big regional issues like transportation, affordable housing and natural resource protection,” said committee member James F. Murley, director of the CUES.
 

Frank Schnidman, CUES Senior Fellow and author of an amicus brief cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in Kelo v. City of New London has organized a series of six seminars for public officials around the state to discuss the meaning of the Kelo decision on Florida.

On June 23, 2005, the Supreme Court held that when, as part of a comprehensive economic development plan, a local government condemns private property to transfer it to another private party strictly to enhance the tax base and hopefully provide jobs, such a taking is a public purpose permissible under the federal Constitution, even without a finding of blight. As part of the majority opinion, the Court was careful to note that nothing in their opinion precluded a state from placing further restrictions on its exercise of the takings power based upon its own constitution or laws. This series of seminars have been designed to inform and educate Florida public officials about the implications this decision has for Florida and the options available to address any perceived need to deal with the situation in Florida.

The sold-out FAU seminar was held July 15. Other sessions include: Tampa September 15; Tallahassee October 7; Orlando November 10; Jacksonville November 18; and Fort Myers December 19. Information and registration materials will soon be available on the CUES website at www.cuesfau.org/cra Seminar materials from the first session are now available for downloading on the site.

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CUES is providing support to Palm Beach County as it sets its vision for economic development for the next 20 years. Director Jim Murley, Associate Director Marie L. York, Research Assistant Mary Beth Hartman, and Senior Fellow Jean Scott are assisting the Palm Beach County Economic Development Office with setting the agenda and program for an economic summit. The county has formed seven subcommittees that are developing recommendations for their respective topics, selecting speakers for the summit, and composing a database of best practices from Florida and around the country. The summit will be held at the PBC Convention Center in November 10 and 11, and establish the vision for writing the County’s Economic Development Strategic Plan. For more information, please contact Marie York.

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CUES and its consultant, Ecological Associates, Inc., have submitted Draft 2 of the Palm Beach County Manatee Protection Plan (PBC MPP), which is being circulated for both agency and public review and comment. Draft 2 and accompanying Figures and Maps can be found in pdf format and downloaded from the Palm Beach County website. Members of the public are invited to submit written comments via e-mail or US Mail as instructed on the website. CUES is also involved in presenting the draft plan at meetings of various stakeholder groups, such as the PBC League of Cities. A countywide public workshop on Draft 2 of the PBC MPP will be held on Tuesday, August 16th, from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m., in the PBC Department of Environmental Resources Management Conference Room, Building 509, 3323 Belvedere Road, West Palm Beach, FL 33406.

CUES continues to work on Broward County’s Boat Facility Siting Plan, a component of the County’s Manatee Protection Plan. Remaining work tasks include drafting the final plan, convening Workshop III, and presenting the plan to the Broward County Board of County Commissioners.

A number of reports are in progress under our subcontract with the South Florida Regional Planning Council to prepare a Strategic Marine Management Plan for Monroe County. These include an analysis of the key stakeholder interviews conducted countywide in May and June 2005, a study area description, and a report on working waterfronts. GIS-mapping products are being prepared, in addition to a legal overview and recommendations for preserving the working waterfront in Monroe County. Project completion is scheduled for December 2005.

Senator Ken Pruitt received an award from the Florida Ocean Alliance (FOA) for his leadership in helping Florida to help address the Presidential Commission’s report on the perilous state of our Oceans. The FOA is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, public-private partnership of government, academic, and private sector organizations. The Alliance promotes awareness and understanding of the ocean’s importance to the ecology and economy of Florida. More information on the Alliance is available at its website: www.floridaoceanalliance.org. CUES serves as FOA’s secretariat.