by Karen Brune Mathis
Managing Editor
Gov. Rick Scott said Friday that he supports the Jacksonville Port Authority’s goals for growth.
However, he said Miami’s port will be the only one ready in Florida for the expansion of the Panama Canal and the large post-Panamax ships that it will accommodate.
“We won’t be ready by 2014,” Scott said about Jacksonville’s port during a brief interview after two meetings and a news conference at the University of North Florida.
“Jacksonville should be one of the ports to get ready,” he said, and that it eventually will be able to compete for the post-Panamax ships. “I think they will,” he said.
Scott recently directed the Florida Department of Transportation to amend its work plan to include $77 million to help the Port of Miami dredge to 50 feet to accommodate the larger ships.
Although he was expected to pledge money to Jacksonville’s port during a recent Cornerstone lunch meeting that he headlined, he did not.
“The biggest issue for Jacksonville is to get all the permits,” he said during the interview, referring to the permitting needed to deepen the St. Johns River to accommodate the ships.
“Miami,” he said, “has the permits.”
Scott spoke with about 120 people attending a Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce Cornerstone lunch forum and separately met with about 20 University of North Florida MBA students, followed by a news conference.
Asked at the news conference about helping to fund Jacksonville’s port, Scott said he was working with the Department of Transportation and with U.S. Rep. John Mica, a Republican and chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
“We all have to come together,” he said. “There’s a big opportunity for the Jacksonville port.”
Asked about assisting with funding to fix Jacksonville’s Mile Point navigational problem, Scott said he was working with the Army Corps of Engineers, the JPA and the transportation department “to make that happen.”
Scott said JPA CEO Paul Anderson “is doing a good job” and said he met with Anderson in Tallahassee last week. Scott said he was meeting with port officials from around the state. There are 14 ports in Florida.
“Not every port has to be a post-Panamax ship port,” he told the chamber forum. “Each one needs to do well.”
Asked during the interview if he would pledge money to Jacksonville’s port, he said “it depends on what we need and what’s fair.”
He told the students that Jacksonville’s port should be a successful one and that it would take City, county, state and federal money to improve it.
“And we have to make sure the dollars are well spent,” he said.
JPA spokeswoman Nancy Rubin said Saturday that based on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers timeline, it could be 2016 before the channel is deepened.
“This is a slow process, but we are confident that even if we are not deeper the day the expanded canal locks open, we are still in contention to get the volumes later this decade,” she said.
She said that Mile Point needs to be fixed first.
The post-Panamax deepening is about a $500 million project and is a cost-sharing arrangement with the federal government. Funding could require loans and bonding, she said.
The correction at Mile Point, where the Intracoastal Waterway meets the St. Johns River and creates navigational impediments, is estimated at $40 million or so.
Asked what the governor could do, Rubin said he could assist with encouraging the federal government to expedite JPA projects, bridge any budget shortfalls or offer loans while the port waits for funding approvals. “There are many, many ways to assist,” she said.
“We are just grateful that he understands the role of investing in ports,” she said.
Rubin said Anderson explained to Scott the challenges with Mile Point, but specifics wait on results of an Army Corps study on both projects.
She said Anderson explained current and future needs to Scott so that the governor “is totally informed when the time is right.”
Rubin understands that the Mile Point and deepening studies should be released in preliminary draft reports in the next few months.
During the interview, Scott said he visits Jacksonville often. “I’m in Jacksonville every two weeks for something,” he said.
Scott recently sold his interest in Jacksonville-based Solantic Corp., a chain of urgent-care clinics.
Asked about his March visit to Jacksonville to help recruit a corporate headquarters, he said Friday that he asked about the deal and was told that “it’s not finished yet.”
He did not identify the company.
Scott, whose campaign pledge was to create 700,000 jobs in seven years with a seven-point plan, said he calls on five companies a day regarding economic development.
He phones or visits with existing companies to see what they need to expand as well as out-of-town companies to see what it would take to recruit them to Florida.
“Every area has different strengths,” he said. In Jacksonville, “a lot is tied to aviation.”
Scott said his Jacksonville visits include meeting with the Cornerstone partnership, making economic development calls, talking at a school or for other reasons, such as signing his first bill, the Student Success Act, at the Knowledge is Power Program School in March.
Scott also spent Friday at a First Coast Tea Party rally at the Landing and said he was supporting Republican mayoral candidate Mike Hogan.
“I believe in people that understand you have to run government well,” said Scott. “People are not receptive to raising taxes.”
Scott, who took office in January, also said:
• His administration is reviewing the state budget line by line and looking at all the costs of “everything that government is involved in.”
• He has a “very good relationship” with the Florida House and Senate, which are controlled by Republicans. “I believe my budget will be passed.” He proposes an almost $66 billion state budget, down $4.6 billion from the current year’s budget.
• He expects to “start the process of phasing out the business tax,” referring to the 5.5 percent state corporate income tax. He intends to reduce it to 2.5 percent and phase it out after that.
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