Barrett Stops Heist Of Stimulus Dollars
A powerful moment for Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who helped Friday morning convince a transportation planning committee in charge of federal stimulus spending that pouring $7.5 million into River Hills, Germantown and suburban West Bend does not meet the federal requirement that the money be spent in economically-distressed communities.
Barrett is right:
Here are the federal rules, which the Committee's parent organization, the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission had previously distributed.
I had blogged about this for several days, with some documented opinion, here added after the planning commission staff caved-0n to political pressures and signalled its willingness to basically overlook the federal rules.
Following the 14-5 vote, the committee made the vote unanimous, and urged the State Department of Transportation, which had approved the three projects prematurely without the committee's requisite role, to fund the projects from a different pot of funding, according to the Daily Reporter.
So to the Milwaukee representatives on the committee, the others in the 14-5 voting majority, and the Mayor: Well done.
3 comments:
Good for Mayor Barrett! Fighting for Milwaukee.
about time - shows that . . . if city folks speak up and stick together, things can get done!
I hope this garners National attention and urban Mayors take note of similar (sub)exurban stimulus theft. I would still like to see Bam and Biden personally come and admonish pols who allow this to happen though; as they alluded to in the press.
As an aside, Biden recently avowed that they will ensure that public safety money isn't similarly squandered. I certainly hope Barrett is also willing to take on the suburban police and fire chiefs...
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