Augusta Commissioners don't know Eric Parker, but they bet $100,000 on his project in the 2012 budget.
“Probably questions still exist. When we approved that in the budget, I thought it was going to be a salary,” says Commissioner Matt Aitken.
“We're not looking for the city to fund anyone’s salary, or do anything like that. We need a place to bring people together,” said Parker, in his first interview talking about Mayor Deke Copenhaver’s economic development project.
Parker wants to bring high-tech people together. The city's $100,000 would be use to retrofit the old Augusta Chamber of Commerce building downtown on Broad Street, which the city owns.
The idea is to create a high-tech business incubator bringing together the best technical people in the Augusta area and entrepreneurs, with ideas, but lack the wherewithal to get them to market.
“What we are hoping to do is start 10 to 15 companies in Augusta, this year, and really do that every year,” says Parker.
Parker owns an architecture firm in California, but went to high school in Columbia County, graduating in 1993.
But budget-wise, this isn't a very good year in Augusta, with Commissioners approving using more than $3.5 million of reserves to cover spending.
Mayor Pro-Tem Joe Bowles supports the high-tech incubator, but he would like to see the city use leftover sales tax dollars for the project and not property taxes, like the city is planning to do now.
“We have three to four million left over SPLOST (Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax) money we can use and we can re-program those $100,000 back to the general fund to offset the deficient,” said Bowles.
“We don't care where the money comes from, we’re just trying to get a space together. We’re bootstrapping this on our own. If the city can help out, that's fantastic,” said Parker.
Though the money for the high-tech center is in the budget, Commissioners haven’t talked with Parker about the project, or the mayor, and there are those who do not think the idea is fantastic.
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