Port St. Lucie — Wheeling and Dealing Begins.

In anticipation of luring scientific researchs firms to Tradition, city council members created an economic development agency to keep documents between the city and prospective employers confidential for up to two years.

Although state statutes require that most correspondence to and from city employees be made public upon request, there is an exemption for economic development agencies trying to recruit new businesses. A company must request confidentiality, something the Burnham Institute has done for months. City Attorney Roger Orr was researching a way to keep the Burnham talks secret when he discovered the law.

The failure to find a permanent home for the Scripps Research Institute has caused a clamor across Florida, and St. Lucie County officials are trying to lure spinoff biotech firms eager to set up shop near Scripps' Florida campus.

Although council members endorsed the economic recruitment agency unanimously, Councilman Christopher Cooper worried that giving the city manager such wide latitude would shut council members out of the equation until the very end of negotiations.

While Mayor Bob Minsky was apprised of the ongoing Burnham negotiations, other council members weren't briefed until Dec. 29, about three months after talks began.

Labeling the city manager's office an economic development agency authorizes the city manager and city attorney to promote business and industrial interests without having to divulge confidential development plans for two years.

A public officer can't enter into a binding agreement with the company until 90 days after the confidential information has been made public, according to the law.

The city has provided property tax incentives to large employers in the past, and it used money from road impact fees in 1999 to offset $500,000 of the cost of land at St. Lucie West for a QVC call center.

The same landowner involved in the QVC deal — Core Communities — is at the heart of Burnham talks. Core developed St. Lucie West and owns 8,200 acres west of Interstate 95 near Gatlin Boulevard, where Burnham wants to build its nonprofit research institute.

City officials say they have refrained from negotiating with Burnham on paper or via e-mail because of the city's inability to keep records confidential, but all that changed at 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon.

Gov. Jeb Bush told a reporter last week that city and county officials hope to complete their incentive package by month's end, after which the state will see what it can offer.