Updated: var wn_last_ed_date = getLEDate("Dec22, 2008 7:34 PM EST"); document.write(wn_last_ed_date); Dec 22, 2008 07:34 PM EST

San Antonio seeks $1 billion in stimulus money

It also would result in the environmental restoration of the San Antonio River's southern reach; street and drainage work to ease Fort Sam Houston's massive expansion; new exhibit and meeting space at the Convention Center and citywide street and sidewalk projects.

Dayton region has to know what 'stimulus' it needs

http://www.daytondailynews.com/o/content/oh/story/opinions/editorial/2008/11/30/ddn113008peircexxeb.html - Read Neal Peirce column

Sunday, November 30, 2008

That loud scribbling sound you hear is cities across the country furiously writing down what they would do with a piece of President-elect Barack Obama's so-called stimulus money.

The Obama administration is promising to dump money into communities with the goal of putting people to work. Democrats and a lot of Republicans — not so much U.S. Rep. John Boehner, R-West Chester — are with the president-elect on this. Economists are saying that to prevent a worse economic collapse, the government itself has to create jobs.

Here's what Obama said a week ago: "We'll be working out the details in the weeks ahead, but it will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jump-start job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy. We'll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels, fuel-efficient cars and the alternative energy technologies..."

How much is he talking about spending?

During the campaign, he argued for a $175 billion stimulus plan. (Increasingly, his people are using the phrase "economic recovery plan;" "stimulus" isn't resonating enough with consumers or markets.) But since then, the economy has turned down so sharply that the prevailing wisdom is that, to matter, the infusion has to be bigger. There's talk of $500 billion, even more.

Not all that money is going to go into a public works program for roads, bridges, sewers and whatnot. Obama, for example, has called for giving a $3,000 tax credit to employers for each new hire they make, not to mention his promises of tax cuts for the middle class. Those costs would fall under the plan.

But more so than there has been in a long time, there's going to be money for local projects if communities can convince Washington that they know what they're doing.

Urban affairs columnist Neal Peirce ( http://www.daytondailynews.com/o/content/oh/story/opinions/editorial/2008/11/30/ddn113008peircexxeb.html - Read his column here ) said in an interview that immediacy will be paramount. "What projects do you have ready and are very close to being constructed" will be the question, he said.

Of course, the Obama people will have criteria for judging ideas, but Peirce thinks the standards will favor cities and metropolitan regions. To that end, projects that promote affordable housing, mass transit or clean energy, or reduce a community's carbon footprint will have an edge, he's betting.

Peirce said that historically the federal government has passed highway dollars through state departments of transportation, letting them set priorities. "The Obama crowd is not going to be satisfied with that," he said, which could mean money going directly to counties and cities.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown said Democrats also will be arguing to support job-creating ideas coming out of universities. He added that Congress and Obama's staff want to decide the details about how proposals will be vetted before Jan. 20, so once Obama is inaugurated, all he has to do is sign the legislation.

Brown said his office will be making calls throughout December to Dayton's National Composite Center, the Ohio State's Center for Automotive Research and Wright-Patterson's Air Force Research Laboratory and others, asking what initiatives they're looking to fund that can be brought up quickly.

The effort, Brown said, "is going to be partly a traditional public works program, but with more conditions."

Montgomery County Administrator Deborah Feldman said local officials don't have a list of priorities yet, but they know that they have just a month to get one together. She said her recommendations will include improvements at the airport and spending on Dayton's Tech Town. She said the second and third phases of the I-75 improvements aren't fully funded, but that work is scheduled for 2011 and beyond, which doesn't meet the immediacy test.

Local officials are forever saying that the Dayton region has a well-regarded priority-setting process — organized through the Dayton Development Coalition — that makes it easier for the politicians to advocate for what it wants. Well, that effort is going to be tested for its effectiveness and boldness at a time when local leaders have been scaling back what they've been hoping for. They've been assuming that there isn't federal money for much of anything.

What made sense three months ago couldn't be more wrong now.

The case is irrefutable that the Dayton region has been buffeted, first, by the loss of manufacturing jobs, and now by an economy in collapse. If the community can't figure out how to turn what it has lost into a case for what it needs, we have no one to blame but ourselves.