State leaders to make changes if Georgia really wants federal dollars to deepen Savannah port

SaportaReport:

Well, if Georgia really is concerned about why it’s not receiving more federal support, it should probably look in the mirror.

The chairman of the Georgia Ports Authority is Alec Poitevint II of Bainbridge.

But Pointevint also has another critical role that is hurting Georgia’s ability to get federal funding.

In early February, Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, announced that he was naming Pointevint to chair the Republican Party’s 2012 political convention in Tampa.

Okay, while serving as chairman of the Georgia Ports Authority, Pointevint also is heading the national convention to get President Barack Obama elected out of office in 2012.

And Georgia leaders are wondering why we didn’t get $100 million from the federal government.

Mayor Reed can be the hardest working Democrat in Georgia seeking federal funds for the port, but he can’t overcome the “shoot-yourself-in-the-foot” situation of having Pointevint as chairman of the Georgia Ports Authority.

Of course, Reed was too diplomatic to own up to Georgia’s awkward position. “I don’t see that as a problem,” Reed told me recently.

But someone who has worked closely with Washington, D.C. officials on this issue told me simply that the Obama administration is well aware of Pointevint’s dual role.

Of course, it also doesn’t help Georgia when 93 Republican state legislators support a bill that would require President Obama to provide proof of his American birth in order to get on the ballot next year.

My former colleague, Jim Galloway, pointed out in the Political Insider this week that the bill comes at the same time that the Georgia Ports Authority is pushing “the White House for hundreds of millions in federal dollars to dredge the Port of Savannah.”

Again, it appears as though Georgia is doing as much as it can to make enemies in the Obama administration. That certainly doesn’t seem to be the smartest move the state can make if it really believes that the deepening of the Port of Savannah is its most important economic development project.