Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) promotes a $1.5 million job growth grant fund investment in Winter Haven, Florida.
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NewsTranscript
00:00a little bit better but that's okay we've um we've you know in Tallahassee like we had a weekend of
00:05just almost non-stop rain and you know we were we were down in uh Palm Beach on Saturday night it's
00:11like perfect and I'm watching the Arnold Palmer tournament in Orlando it's like perfect and we
00:16were uh we were drowning so hopefully we get over that today for the rest of the state and get back
00:21to the Florida sunshine. I'm pleased to be joined here by Alex Kelly who's our Florida Commerce
00:27Secretary. We also have President of the Winter Haven Economic Development Council Bruce Lyon.
00:33We have our Mayor Nathaniel Birdsong. Thank you for being here. Appreciate it.
00:40Mayor Pro Tem Brian Yates. I appreciate you for being here. Then we also have a number of
00:46Winter Haven City Commissioners and I think we've got uh Polk State College and uh Polly.
00:53Are you guys here? Yes. Okay good. Well welcome. Thanks for being here.
01:00So we have really led the nation in a variety of issues but one of the things we've been ranked
01:06number one in in recent years is our economy. If you look at our economy since 2019 when I took
01:13office it's grown by over 30 percent which is twice of what the U.S. economy has grown by
01:19over that period of time and we're number one uh in economic growth uh amongst sizable states. I
01:26think Idaho may be a little bit more than us but Idaho has less people than Polk County does so
01:31it's a little bit different comparison when you're talking and I love Idaho but it's just not the
01:35same as comparing to a mature economy. So we so we've been able to do that really drive a lot of
01:41growth a lot of investment uh certainly when COVID was here I think our approach was much more
01:47rational it was uh it drove a lot of people and attracted a lot of people to want to come. There
01:52were a lot of people that really weren't able to even operate appropriately in some of these other
01:57states and it's got to the point where they used to have governors would go around the country
02:02hey come to come to our state do this do that and everything. We got to the point where a lot of
02:07these governors or a lot of these business guys are just calling hey we want to let the governor
02:11know we want to come to Florida you know we look for well what do you need no nothing we're we're
02:15set we just want to do it. So we've created a lot of I think great opportunities and so I think it's
02:21both CNBC and U.S. News World Report have ranked us number one in economy the last two years.
02:27Our economy overall I think when I became governor I think it was a little over a trillion
02:33for our total economy for now it's about 1.6 trillion dollars and if we were our own country
02:38I think that we'd be like 13th or 14th largest economy in the entire world. We have been the
02:45fastest growing state over the last four or five years. We are number one in new business formation
02:52since 2019. We've had 3.4 million new businesses formed and 370,000 just in the last year.
03:00We have done a good job working with the legislature also utilizing resources like
03:07our bond finance agency that does a lot to help reduce Florida's debt. We have a triple
03:13a credit rating from all the rating agencies and for the 50th month in a row our unemployment rate
03:19is lower than the nation's as a whole. We have added jobs in 52 of the last 56 months since May
03:28of 2020 and over the year year over year private sector job growth rate has exceeded the national
03:35average for 40 consecutive months. Of course we have a a strong climate we actually want people
03:42to be successful here. We're not trying to regulate people to death and certainly not try
03:47to tax people to death. We have one of the lowest state tax burdens in America with no income tax
03:53and we're looking always looking at ways to do different types of tax relief. We've done many
03:58billions of dollars since 2019. Sometimes it'll be things like a tax holiday. I mean this year we're
04:05proposing a marine fuel tax holiday to help our boaters and fishermen. Second amendment tax holiday
04:12for for those items and we do back to school disaster prep. All these different things are
04:17what we traditionally do but we've also done things like permanently eliminate sales tax on
04:23baby items and so parents welcoming a new baby into the world can buy diapers tax-free, can buy
04:30all this stuff that's so important tax-free which can be very expensive. We're looking at ways to
04:35continue to do when you don't have income tax that's good but then it's harder to cut taxes
04:40because if you had an income tax you just cut the tax rate and say hey we cut taxes so we don't so
04:45we're looking at okay those holidays are fine we did eliminate sales tax on some of those what else
04:51can we do. One of the things we're hoping to see done with the legislature we're the only state in
04:56the country that that taxes business rent and so it's kind of a relic from a bygone era it doesn't
05:03make a lot of sense it does bring in revenue but quite frankly I think that the gains in the economy
05:08would would be better anyways so we're looking to we've reduced the business rent tax a number of
05:13times over the last several years and it's time really to just eliminate it entirely and I think
05:18that would be really good for the economy. I think it would be a sound fiscally as well and we're in
05:23a position to do that we've been running major major budget surpluses certainly over the last
05:29four years we've had at one point we just had so much money pouring in not even through taxing
05:36people just because of the growth and everything happening that we were like you know what are we
05:41going to do and so we were able to cut taxes we did something called moving Florida forward which
05:45I'll say a little bit more on in a second but one of the things we decided to do is hey why don't we
05:51really work hard to pay down as much state debt as possible so if you look at we just celebrate
05:58our 180th anniversary as a state a couple weeks ago if you look from there in the 1840s to the
06:03present you took all the debt that the state of Florida has accumulated since 2019 we've paid off
06:0941 percent of that and we're going to do even more and part of the reason why is we've created
06:14an accelerated debt repayment program which allows our guys to go in they will find some of
06:21these bonds they usually will buy them for a discount on the open market they retire the debt
06:26and then we save hundreds of millions of dollars actually we'll end up saving over billion dollars
06:31and maybe multiple billions of dollars in interest costs by doing this and so we're the only state
06:37in the country that is doing that as aggressively and of all the states that have any state debt
06:43we have the lowest per capita state debt in in the United States if you looked at your share of debt
06:50for the state of Florida per Florida resident it'd be about 660 dollars if you compare your share as
06:57a U.S. citizen to the federal national debt it'd be well over a hundred thousand dollars that you
07:03would owe for that 36 trillion dollar debt so we're uh we're proud of doing that we want to do
07:09more and I think we can get to over 50 percent of the debt repaid uh over an eight year period
07:15which I think would be really really uh fantastic to be able to do and the thing is is part of the
07:20reason we're able to do that we're spending this year less money than we spent last year
07:26you're not seeing that anywhere else where they're actually reducing spending
07:30and we have the lowest footprint of government workers state workers per capita in the entire
07:37United States of America so you're talking about Doge and you're watching seeing what Elon's doing
07:42obviously our federal government is massive but here in the state it's a very very lean operation
07:48and I think that that's how it should be so we're proud of that so and I always bring I just spoke
07:53at you know I got invited to speak at the New York Economic Club and you know they people governor
07:59you're invited here you're heading you kind of go through you accept you don't accept whatever some
08:03scheduling conflicts sometimes you just don't think it's a good idea whatever there's a lot
08:07of different reasons so I'm a New York Economic Club I'm like well you know I probably got to go
08:12up there and talk to some of the future Floridians because there are a lot of these people are moving
08:15down and I'm not asking them to move but they're moving and they're like no no no governor they're
08:20actually holding the New York Economic Club meetings in Palm Beach now so I was like okay
08:26so we were at the New York Economic Club last week in Palm Beach and um
08:31and I mean look I I kind of just said I kind of feel an obligation to speak to you guys because
08:35some of you are coming here I was like but if you want the long and short of it oh yeah why is
08:40Florida number one economy number one all the stuff I was like part of it is I have a cheat code
08:45all I have to do is watch what California Illinois and New York do and then do precisely the opposite
08:51and it usually works out pretty good but if you look at the fiscal management New York state now
08:57they have millions fewer residents than we do in Florida I mean New York used to be the most
09:02populous state 50 years ago uh than California but New York had always had more people than us
09:08until relatively recently and so we have over 23 million they have about 19 and a half million
09:15and so even with millions more residents the state of Florida's budget is less than half
09:21of the budget of New York state how does that make sense and I asked them would you rather
09:26get a go to the DMV here or there they all said here would you rather do you like the roads better
09:32here they all said here and so and clearly we're ranked number one in education two years in a row
09:37so it just shows you so so we're running a very lean mean fighting machine but we have done major
09:44major investments in things that really matter and I think what's happened in some of these states
09:49that are high tax high spend is the government itself has become an interest group and there's
09:56just certain constituencies that that have a share of this and so so much of government for
10:02them is just paying off people uh whether it's unions or other things and so the money just
10:07disappears very very quickly and that's why you've seen their budgets escalate so much but then the
10:13results never get any better and so for us our view is is this is your money there are certain
10:20things that that we need as a state and if there are things that are important we're going to do
10:25it and we're going to go in big and get it done so you've seen what we've done with everglades
10:30restoration and and improving water quality big investments major initiative the largest
10:37environmental restoration in the in the country maybe in the world uh but we've gone in really
10:42big on that you look what we've done on education not just doing universal school choice which is
10:47important uh but we've done billions of dollars for increased teacher salaries we've we've had
10:52the largest the highest per pupil spending that we've ever had and not that that is is the end of
10:58it because there's a lot of places that spend a lot of money and get really bad results uh but it
11:03does show that that we have a commitment we have a commitment to higher education and we have funding
11:08for universities but we don't let them raise tuition so your tuition sixty three hundred
11:13dollars for a florida resident for these universities you can't beat that anywhere
11:18else in the united states so we're proud of being strong on education we're strong proud of being
11:23strong on environment we've been strong on law and order we've done things like and we've been
11:28in polk county talking about these things in the past with sheriff judd we have a five thousand
11:33dollar recruitment bonus we've been doing for new new recruits coming in and not just for the people
11:38fleeing the um the the anti-law enforcement jurisdictions which there are a lot of those
11:44but young people that want to go in they're eligible too because we think it's a noble
11:48profession so we've done a lot on that but one of the things that we did and i think people in
11:53central florida see the urgency of this is we said okay the state is growing not because i'm asking
11:59for it because i think that the reality is is there's positives but then there's also challenges
12:04that come so you don't see me out there saying oh please move to florida please move to florida
12:09because i understand that there's that there's things that uh will will will cause potential
12:15difficulties including traffic so we see the traffic and you could be like champions gate
12:22you could just sit there at any time of the day i-4 going through polk county it's not just rush
12:29hour it's like you could be there uh sunday afternoon at two o'clock and and it's just it's
12:35tough and then we have and i think central florida is one of the the areas that probably
12:39are the the worst but you know you got tampa southwest florida you have other parts the pan
12:44handle all these things okay we have all these infrastructure projects slated but some of them
12:51weren't even scheduled to begin until next decade and i'm like well how is that going to help people
12:56so we took many billions of dollars from our budget surplus we created a program called
13:01moving florida forward and the goal was to take things that we know need to be done get it done
13:09now and be able to deliver final products 5 10 even 15 years ahead of schedule and so those
13:16projects are ongoing uh this includes the uh i-4 project in in polk county where uh we have
13:25polk and osceola where we're adding the lanes and auxiliary lanes and express lanes in both
13:30directions improving ramp access i'll tell you the i-4 ultimate that was done in orange county
13:37mostly that was that did help i mean like there's no question it helps so this will help too
13:42and we're looking forward to doing that this whole project just here with what we're doing
13:48in the polk county area it's going to have billions of dollars of impact it will reduce
13:52congestion it's going to help supply chain and it will make it safer to be on the highways
13:58so we've been able to do this as i said many many years ahead of schedule there's other projects
14:03that are auxiliary to the i-4 as you know uh here in polk osceola some of these areas but this is
14:10really really significant and this stuff was all slated people thought it was a good idea to do
14:15eventually but i was just like we got to do now to to to meet to mitigate what we're seeing so i
14:22think that that's really really positive so so our view is we have opportunities to make a difference
14:27we will not gonna spend your tax dollars lightly but on those things that are really core to our
14:33state doing well we want to be helpful and we want to go in and be meaningful which brings us
14:39here today so part of what we're seeing is opportunities in central florida to expand
14:47shipping capabilities and logistics and of course uh we're here um at the central florida integrated
14:55logistics park and you see the possibilities and the opportunities here so we were requested
15:02by the city of winter haven to help with expanding rail access within the central florida integrated
15:09logistics park we looked at it we believe there's a high return on investment and so i'm proud to
15:14say that today we will be cutting the check for 1.5 million dollars through our job growth grant
15:20fund to the city of winter haven to be able to get this done
15:27so this logistics park is close to a thousand acres of developable land that can accommodate
15:33over 8 million square feet of development in close proximity to major thoroughfares and a dedicated
15:39cxs rail intermodal facility the center's utilities can accommodate a wide range
15:45wide variety of users from food and cold storage to manufacturers and statewide logistic companies
15:51these businesses include many businesses who i can't even say now but you guys will find out and
15:58likely be businesses that that you definitely know about but the rail extension will help
16:04businesses expand operations in this area and we definitely see the potential for new jobs being
16:12created this is is important our whole freight rail related activity statewide has over a half
16:20a million jobs that are impacted it ends up generating 27 billion in labor income and it
16:26produces 112 billion in economic output so this is important especially given florida here in
16:34central florida and our ability to to move things around we want to be able to facilitate that so
16:39this is key distribution point in the center of our state yes csx rail major highways i-4
16:46state roads 60 and 27 these investments combined with our moving florida forward initiatives
16:53will continue to alleviate checkpoints in the supply chain and you know my main focus on the
16:59roads is just the the workers and the families being able to not not be caught in traffic but
17:06it does help with the logistics it does help with the shipping to be able to get these trucks up and
17:11down the highways as well and then of course when you add expansion of rail access that's a huge
17:17huge thing so i'm excited to be able to to do this we're going to present the check in a minute
17:21but before i do that we will hear from alex and bruce
17:25and then we'll have the winter haven folks come up and accept the check
17:28governor thank you so much and again good morning everybody alex kelly secretary of commerce
17:34governor thank you for your leadership um in in being here today and in this moment
17:39and your focus on ready infrastructure around the state and in particular these opportunities
17:45to connect great shipping shipping supply chain opportunities and the workforce that goes with
17:51that as well you know one thing that my friend bruce and i do share in common is uh we get
17:55a lot of questions from companies who are looking at this area looking at polk county and they'll
18:00say where are we going to get our workforce from and i'll just say let me introduce you to
18:04president falconetti let me introduce you to president stevenson they've got it covered so
18:08you've got you've got a couple incredible leaders here um but governor again just to echo some of
18:13your points um this was a great partnership opportunity uh we worked with bruce and team
18:19actually a couple times over we've worked together um previously we worked on the roadway
18:24access project uh that's going to really bring a lot of the workforce into this area
18:28uh and this is really an incredible this project um and once the rails connected this project
18:33really is an example our best practice i i think example of what you can do in a in a strategic
18:40targeted way um you know if you just drive around you look you look at the coca-cola distribution
18:45center you look at florida cans manufacturing facility you know future just just uh not too
18:50not too far in the distant future we'll have uh niagara water just across the street um and you
18:55can see that incredible effort to create really a hub for employment um but it's not just a hub
19:01for polk county certainly it's going to help winter haven certainly it's going to help polk
19:05county but really what you're doing here is going to really serve the statewide intermodals and
19:10really benefit the economy as a whole this is a great example of a local vision strategic
19:16partnership with the governor with the state um and public-private partnership uh really bringing
19:22an incredible opportunity together and it's a great example to uh governor of why manufacturing
19:28in florida you know you talked about our economy growing by 30 percent since you came in office
19:32manufacturing in florida has grown by 30 percent there's been about 7 000 new manufacturing
19:38companies created in florida over the last six years it's the fastest growth um in the nation
19:44and that's an impactful growth and i think that we're going to continue to see that
19:48here in polk county in the region in the state when you consider what that impact means
19:54manufacturing when you create 100 manufacturing jobs you're creating if for a durable good you're
20:00creating 744 other indirect jobs for a non-durable good you're creating 514 other indirect jobs the
20:10indirect jobs the the the amplifying power of that for winter haven for polk county for the state
20:16uh is incredible and so uh it's bruce it's been great to partner with you governor thank you again
20:21for your leadership uh and your commitment to really helping communities around the state
20:26develop great sites develop great connections um see so many friends and partners in the room look
20:31forward to uh to uh president and president look forward to working with you when you when we're
20:35when we're hiring up here so and again just congratulations and again thank you governor
20:46good morning everybody and governor de santa secretary kelly
20:50sincerely appreciate you being here today thank you for joining us for this exciting announcement
20:55this marks an excuse me an important milestone for our community we've we've for a long time
21:00contemplated having direct rail service in this park but for a variety of reasons over the years
21:06it was not possible or not practical now with this grant it suddenly is and this new rail spur that
21:12we're going to bring in this is going to bring a fresh mode of transportation to this industrial
21:16park it's going to improve freight efficiency statewide by getting trucks off of our roads
21:22what's the last thing i talked to five county commissioners about recently and that is trucks
21:26on our roads right this helps reduce that but it helps reduce it statewide it's really an important
21:33project for all of us and it does create as the governor said important jobs for polk county
21:39important jobs for winter haven but this is now a state asset not by ownership it's trapped
21:45properties by ownership but it's a state asset in terms of the impact that it has and that's
21:50really what this grant is all about i would like to take a minute to thank some of the key players
21:56and i think everyone here and everyone in the room understands that projects like this don't
22:01come about overnight and they don't come about in isolation right but first and foremost governor
22:08de santis and secretary kelly previously not quite secretary worked to designate this as a federal
22:15opportunity zone in 2019 2018 that's how long the governor's been at the table that's how long
22:21secretary kelly's been at the table to help support this project to help support the local economy
22:25here mayor city commissioner city management city staff have been phenomenal and relentless
22:32supporters of this project csx and evansville western railway they made the initial investments
22:38to build the intermodal terminal here polk state college and dr falconetti who is also the chair of
22:44the winter haven economic development council at the moment have been again relentless supporters
22:50of economic development they are constantly at the table trying to figure out the best ways
22:55to think forward about the workforce about what we need today but about what we need three and
23:00five and ten years out some of us have the privilege and obligation of doing that others
23:05don't dr falconetti and i we have the privilege of doing that jonathan tratt jim ford owners of the
23:12park you've breathed new life into this and we can't thank you enough florida can manufacturing
23:21which invested over 100 million dollars a couple of years ago is now owned by ball corporation
23:26a good name to have in your park i believe right 100 million in 150 jobs and another 40 or 50 acres
23:34of expansion capacity on their site so we're looking for them hopefully over the coming years
23:40to invest time and time and time again as the secretary mentioned niagara water will be located
23:47just to the south of this building on 65 acres they will build 1.2 million square feet all told
23:56this will be the single largest their investment will be the single largest investment in polk
24:00county history by orders of magnitude and it will create 400 or more jobs these are important jobs
24:07and that's a company that serves the entire state right they will distribute on state road
24:1360 out to the turnpike down to miami over to fort myers wherever it might be they're not here for
24:19polk county beyond the jobs and the investment they're here to serve the state of florida
24:23and that's why i say this is such an important asset to the state
24:29my own staff at the economic development council have to thank you
24:31and the board of county commissioners county commissioners have offered critical tax exemptions
24:38for a number of different projects in this park and that's enabled these investments to come about
24:44we also know that going forward in the very near future you're about to make a very smart decision
24:50about not raising impact fees higher impact fees will preclude investments like this
24:55this building that we're in it's a speculative investment if you if you increase the impact
25:00fees it slows down the process and you get less investment to occur i'd love to make an announcement
25:06about what's going to happen in this building in the next couple of months governor i'm not allowed
25:10to yet maybe we'll have you back for that it will rock your world if you knew what was about to
25:15happen here so thank you all we appreciate it anything that we can do going forward we will
25:20be happy to help you out in our community or any other community we look forward to an exciting
25:24adventure together thank you
25:26you guys want to do this here
25:38how you guys want to take it
25:40thank you
25:48all right good deal
25:52well thanks everybody i'm excited about uh this opportunity as as was mentioned i think you're
25:57going to hear more about what what this grant will will lead to which i think a lot of people
26:02are going to get excited about i think you could build some additional momentum which will be
26:06really really good so uh we're we've done a lot in polk for sure with with some of the
26:11infrastructure stuff i mean there's no question
26:17i mean what do you have now over 800 000 people what's the what's the population right now it's
26:22over 800 right i mean man like i know people that grew up in polk you know 40 50 years ago and there
26:29it's uh it's it's but there's challenges that come with that and i know a lot of people want
26:34to see those addressed that's what we're trying to do with move florida forward with with the
26:37logistics and everything about it so it's uh but it's a good time of year to be in florida i know
26:42we just had the arnold palmer golf term we got spring training going on we got the players
26:46championship in ponte vedro we got the vol spar we've got a whole bunch of stuff just there's a
26:50lot to do i know a lot of people are on spring break now we've made clear to people i was down
26:56in miami beach last week saying um you know you can come and enjoy but we are not letting inmates
27:02run the asylum if you think you're gonna bring mayhem to our communities that is not going to
27:06happen and we'll be willing to support any local efforts to make sure that doesn't with our state
27:11resources and it worked very well last year in miami beach i know they're loaded and ready to
27:15go to make sure that happens again uh in a good way but there's obviously a lot of positive tourism
27:22that's happening as well so so i hope people enjoy it's a good time of year to be in florida
27:26okay with that do we have any questions back there yes
27:38yeah yeah right across street there's no impact to neighborhoods
27:41or anything like that okay you guys enjoy have a good one thanks so much