Arcadia: a town with a future, but what about the present?
By Maggie Crane, WINK News
ARCADIA, Fla - President Barack Obama is in Florida tonight, and he'll flip the switch on the country's largest solar energy field in Arcadia Tuesday Morning.
During the height of construction on the solar fields, Florida Power and Light employed 400 workers, but some say those jobs have come and gone -- leaving a town with a future but no present plan to help.
Call it the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow -- FPL's $152 Million Next Generation Energy Center. It's fuel-free and pollution free, plus it will pay for itself over time.
"In the life of this plant it will off-set what we'd otherwise have to burn -- 7 Billion cubic feet of natural gas and 277,000 barrels of oil," FPL's Eric Silagy says. "We don't have to buy that now."
90,500 solar panels dot the Desoto County field. Florida Power and Light says it's the future of renewable energy, but some people in Arcadia fear that looking to the bigger picture of the future bypasses the present problems.
"With the decline of businesses, the quality of life went out because revenue left," Lonnie Ward Jr. of National Communications Network, says. "When you see people without jobs who can't provide for themselves, you see structures start to fall and people who can't cover mortgages."
In September this year, more than 1,700 people in Desoto County were without work. That's 11.7 percent unemployment. During the same month last year, unemployment sat at 8.5 percent.
Sustainable jobs at the solar fields are few, and that doesn't sit well with some.
"It's a waste of money," Bob Lee says. "It it doesn't bring jobs, why build it?"
But others hope the solar fields will mean long-term growth on the horizon.
"Disney started in the middle of the state, and it sprung up," Pastor Phil Stutzman of the Church of Arcadia, says. "Here we are, Arcadia, just waiting to be discovered."
there is a video if anyone would like to see it and also what the president had to say at the following link: http://www.winknews.com/news/local/66235057.html
During the height of construction on the solar fields, Florida Power and Light employed 400 workers, but some say those jobs have come and gone -- leaving a town with a future but no present plan to help.
Call it the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow -- FPL's $152 Million Next Generation Energy Center. It's fuel-free and pollution free, plus it will pay for itself over time.
"In the life of this plant it will off-set what we'd otherwise have to burn -- 7 Billion cubic feet of natural gas and 277,000 barrels of oil," FPL's Eric Silagy says. "We don't have to buy that now."
90,500 solar panels dot the Desoto County field. Florida Power and Light says it's the future of renewable energy, but some people in Arcadia fear that looking to the bigger picture of the future bypasses the present problems.
"With the decline of businesses, the quality of life went out because revenue left," Lonnie Ward Jr. of National Communications Network, says. "When you see people without jobs who can't provide for themselves, you see structures start to fall and people who can't cover mortgages."
In September this year, more than 1,700 people in Desoto County were without work. That's 11.7 percent unemployment. During the same month last year, unemployment sat at 8.5 percent.
Sustainable jobs at the solar fields are few, and that doesn't sit well with some.
"It's a waste of money," Bob Lee says. "It it doesn't bring jobs, why build it?"
But others hope the solar fields will mean long-term growth on the horizon.
"Disney started in the middle of the state, and it sprung up," Pastor Phil Stutzman of the Church of Arcadia, says. "Here we are, Arcadia, just waiting to be discovered."
there is a video if anyone would like to see it and also what the president had to say at the following link: http://www.winknews.com/news/local/66235057.html
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