| President Obama's stimulus spending could come to St. Robert |
By: Darrell Todd Maurina
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Posted: Monday, February 2, 2009 11:54 pm
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ST. ROBERT, Mo. (Feb. 2, 2009) — Some of President Barack Obama’s proposed economic stimulus money could be coming to the city of St. Robert, according to City Administrator Norman Herren, but only if city officials act quickly.
“One of the projects you’ll probably be hearing more about is the ‘American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009,’ which you hear as the ‘stimulus package,’” Herren said at Monday evening’s city council meeting.
“From the initial information we’re getting, if that package were to pass as-is, Missouri would be receiving approximately $165 million for wastewater projects and another $38 million for drinking water projects,” Herren said. “Time is of the essence. Once this project is approved, they want cities that are involved in this project to be actually in construction within 120 days.”
Because of that deadline, Herren said city officials need to get any projects they want to recommend prepared immediately for submission to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, which will be administering the grant proposals.
Herren said he and a team of Mayor George Sanders, Director of Public Works Lyle Thomas, City Engineer Jeff Medows and utility foreman Steve Long are working to evaluate four projects that are on the table for possible consideration.
“We have a schedule of meetings over the next few weeks so we can outline what we want to do and basically get the preliminary engineering down,” Herren said. “If you don’t do that, you’re not going to reach the time frames that the state department is going to demand … we’re going to be working on it and if this comes to fruition, we’re going to be asking for your support because we’re going to have to take some quick steps in being the first in line to get some of that money.”
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