Go Fish swims against the (revenue) stream | www.myajc.com

PERRY — The Go Fish Education Center rises just off the largely vacant, four-lane Perry Parkway, a monument to fish and fishermen — and a politician’s willingness to bet millions of taxpayer dollars on a dream.

That dream — to promote Georgia as an angler’s pardise — belonged to Gov. Sonny Perdue, who pledged the state to borrow $14 million needed to float his Go Fish Georgia initiative. When he announced around Christmas 2007 that the center would be built down the road from his home, officials predicted annual attendance of 200,000.

Paid attendance, while slowly growing, is barely a tenth of that, with ticket sales of less than $70,000 this fiscal year, through the end of May. The debt, $20 million with interest, won’t be paid off until Dec. 1, 2027. Including bond payments, salaries and overhead, the state is paying out more than $1.5 million a year to keep the center going. It is open to the public three days a week, but school groups reserve it for field trips other days.

The fact that the center’s not a raging river of revenue is no surprise to many legislators.

“Who is going to Perry, Ga., to look at a fishing center?” asked Rep. Ben Harbin, R-Evans, who was House Appropriations chairman when lawmakers signed off on the program. “You are playing with taxpayer money and committing it year after year. No business in its right mind would keep that facility open.”

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