The road to nowhere!
To the editor:
Recently, Audie Lewis (Business Recruitment Specialist for the City of Cape Coral) shared with a group of local commercial real estate experts that he had just returned from a trip to Atlanta, where he was pursuing investors to stimulate economic development in our city. He also mentioned that he was planning a trip to South America to seek offshore investors, as well.
The Daily Breeze has now reported that Mr. Lewis is indeed headed to attend Recon 09 Latin America (in Panama) later this month where 90 percent of the attendees are “interested in investing in Latin America”, as stated by a conference executive. The conference headline is “The Global Meeting Point for the Latin America Shopping Center Industry.” I can only conclude that our city administration has now officially “lost its mind” and is spending more of the tax payers’ money on a venture to attend a foreign country (to attract business to invest in C.C.), when clearly, that country is promoting attendees to invest in Latin America. Why would a company that is in the retail business want to come to C.C., when their intent to attend “Recon 09” in the first place, is to try to promote a profitable business in Latin America?
We need to stop promoting wasteful ventures and replace it with a focus on restoring the financial health of our city, by attracting American businesses that will bring jobs! We have to make the cost of doing business here attractive and less expensive than other competing cities. Only then will investors want to come to our city to create a sustainable economic growth business. By the way, those investors are right here in the U.S.A.
Let’s keep it in the Cape!
John Cataldi
Candidate for Cape Coral City Council District # 6