Letter: Economic development more than buzzwords

Beaufort County's economic development efforts are sicker than just being uncoordinated. They suffer from: Grand Words, No Math.

For example, a stated goal is jobs paying above the state average wage, but what if that causes increasing needs for roads, schools, infrastructure, bad environmental impacts, large subsidies, high risk and rising taxes? We clearly need something more precisely calibrated. But politicians resist using verifiable math before they spend taxpayer money. Buzzwords, ignoring impacts and higher taxes, are easier.

There are several groups involved in this:

• Those who prefer buzzwords over knowledge. This includes Councilman Jerry Stewart and his followers, their defunct Lowcountry Economic Network/Lowcountry Economic Alliance and new, poorly thought-through schemes.
• Those who know what they are doing and enjoy taxpayers subsidizing their enterprise.
• Those who may have a worthwhile venture or idea.

How do we separate the foolish and greedy from the good? We don't. We permit county and municipal politicians to be quantitatively lazy and secretive. I watched County Council gush with praise while authorizing taxpayer funds for a lemon sending so many warning signals that no banker would touch it.

As a result, we have likely wasted more than $10 million on economic development in the past decade -- including salaries, consultants, speculative land, buildings and infrastructure, subsidies, tax gimmicks and tucked-away line items -- without much success.

It would be very useful to list and learn from these mistakes. Taxpayers should insist on careful analysis, not buzzwords.

Steven M. Baer

Hilton Head Island

This story was originally published December 15, 2015 at 4:22 PM with the headline "Letter: Economic development more than buzzwords."