Time and time again I’ve heard community leaders suggest that if the local naysayers were only silenced, our community would prosper.  The implication is that somehow failed ideas are the fault of the voices of decent.  First of all, do you really want to live in a country or community where decent is silenced?  No doubt it is true that some people say outrageous things; on the other hand, if left unchecked, our leaders would be free do outrageous things.   The real reason ideas fail has little to do with who is for them and who is against them.  It is really all about the money.  The aquarium, the convention center, the marina hotel, and the Sperry’s building project all have one thing in common: the private portion of the financing is hard to finalize.  Gone are the days when a financial institution is willing to stick its neck out and loan money for a project that cannot demonstrate a clear path to success.  So, while people in a community argue about the merits of an idea, the real debate is going on in the board rooms of financial institutions.  Quietly and with little fanfare, a mutli-million dollar truck stop is being built in the area.  Why is that development succeeding while others are stalled?  It is as simple as this: somewhere a financial institution believed it was an investment that would be profitable.