FitzGerald proposes using sales tax revenues to help launch Fourth Frontier

As a candidate for Cuyahoga County executive, Ed FitzGerald laid out a plan for economic development he pledged to put into action if elected.

As part of that plan, FitzGerald proposed creating a program called the Fourth Frontier. Modeled after Ohio"s Third Frontier program, it would establish an economic development fund that would make investments in businesses to encourage growth and jobs.

A campaign policy statement posted online detailed the plan. FitzGerald said the fund could have assets greater than $100 million.

In his State of the County Address in April 2011, FitzGerald outlined a way to make $16 million a year available for several programs, including the economic development fund. FitzGerald proposed reducing spending to free up 10 percent of sales tax collections to generate the money.

The initiatives will mean cuts to existing county programs and layoffs for hundreds of county employees.

"We will not reduce the chronic unemployment of this region by adding to a public payroll but by ensuring that more residents earn a living wage on a private payroll,” he said in his address.

About half of the $16 million would be used to pay off the $100 million that the county would borrow to jump-start the fund. The economic development fund would invest in local businesses and carry out a five-year strategy the county"s Economic Development Commission is crafting.

"We have one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to define who we really are,” FitzGerald said of the plans. "It would be easier to try to change course gradually, over a decade or so. But we"re out of time.”

The plan still has a ways to go before it becomes reality, but based on his announcement, we move the Fitz-O- Meter for this promise to In the Works.