While President Barack Obama celebrates the signing of his $787 billion economic stimulus bill, city officials in Saratoga Springs are awaiting news from the state as to what, if any, of the projects they have submitted for funding will be approved.
Prior to the bill being passed, city officials had met with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand - while she was in congress - and Sen. Charles Schumer's office to discuss what type of projects the state was looking to put the money towards before making any requests. After seeking their advice, city officials submitted a request for around $21.4 million in stimulus funding to Gov. David Paterson's office last week. New York State is expected to receive $24.6 billion from the package over the next two years according to a recent press release by Paterson.
According to Commissioner of Public Safety Ron Kim, the city has requested $11.7 million for a new police station, $4.3 million for a new fire station, $700,000 for an emergency power generator for the water treatment plant, $550,000 for improvements to the Geyser Crest well system, $100,000 for a new drainage system at the City Center and $25,000 for a Fire Department call back system.
During Kim's conversations with both Gillibrand and Schumer's offices, he said they were repeatedly told that stimulus money was not intended to fund police and fire stations. Then Kim's office started researching what capital projects other municipalities in the state had requested for stimulus funding and found that Rochester had requested a new police and fire stations and New York City had also requested a number of new precincts. In the Capital Region, Albany has also requested $230 million for a new downtown convention center and Schenectady is asking for renovations to their city hall.
"When we saw the web site we decided we can't stand on protocol here - we are going to ask for it and see what happens because it is still very unclear what is going to be funded and what is not going to be funded," Kim said.
Kim added that the city could just be hitting a brick wall with the requests because it seems to him that the original intent was not to fund these types of projects.
"If there is a police station built in the state with the stimulus money as far as I am concerned we should be the first ones," Kim said. "We have a shovel-ready project so we are hopeful somebody will be interested."
Currently the City Council is reviewing three bids from three separate developers to fund the construction of a new police station behind city hall. Two of the developers have proposed paying for the facility through a form of paid parking downtown. Kim said the city should consider revisiting the plans if the facility is funded through stimulus money. Council members have previously said an award of bid for the project could come at the end of February.
"It is clear that the process of funding a public safety building through paid parking is not going to be an easy one to decide," Kim said.
Commissioner of Public Works Skip Scirocco said that the Department of Public Works has also asked for around $2 million for a new water tower in the city's industrial park, $1.8 million for a Church St. reconstruction project and money for a new water line that runs beneath Gilbert Road. He said most of what the department has asked for are shovel-ready infrastructure projects because that is what he was told the state was looking for during meetings with Sen. Gillibrand's office.
"It would be great for the city if we could get the money to fund these infrastructure projects because otherwise we are going to have to pay for them ourselves," he said. "It would also mean jobs and over the long-term that is what it is all about - infrastructure is like the engine that drives the whole economy of the city."
Kim said city officials are currently trying to schedule a meeting to discuss their requests with state officials in charge of distributing the stimulus money sometime next week.
To learn more about how the money from the stimulus package could be spent, visit www.stimuluswatch.org.
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You forget that the Community Organizer in Chief, a man who has never held executive office in his life, is a Chicago politician. He will make sure that the monies are allocated via the Chicago model: one for you, two for me, one for you, three for me.
ACORN and the local affliates of the Democratic party will be living large. City residents not so much.
In any case, Porkulus will create the largest debt increase in the history of our country and our grandchildren will be paying for this all of their lives.