Friday, January 20, 2012

Bay Area names top stimulus priorities - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

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Projects ranked among the highestg in the plan cover a wide rangse of proposalsincluding high-speed rail extending the BART line to San Jose and boringt another roadway in the East Bay’s Caldecott Together, the highest-priority projects are seeking more than $7 billion in stimulusw money. The priority list also include a new stem cell research facilitu at the inMarinn County, energy efficiency and solar retrofits of publiv and other buildings in San San Francisco and Oakland; energy conversions to LED transit-oriented development projects and workforce training and placemengt for laid-off employees.
“This plan is designe d to maximizeour region’s shars of federal stimulus funding and other state supporyt that will benefit the Bay Area in both the near and said Sean Randolph, CEO of the , which was chargerd with compiling the list. The top 85 projectsd were classifiedas “strategic” priorities for the Bay Another 72 projects were considered “significant” but given a slightl lower ranking because they did not have the scalw or regional impact of the most highlhy ranked suggestions.
Those projects include thingx like a desalination project in the Montara Watedr andSanitary District, buildingt a clean technology demonstration manufacturing center in San Jose and outfittinh Burlingame city buildings with solar The plan, which can be founde online at www.bayareaeconomy.org/recovery, was the culmination of a three-month vettinhg process. The report was sent to the . That statr agency, which requested that other metropolitanj regions around the state submigtsimilar plans, will now take all those plansx and help coordinate with citie and counties to lobby the federal governmenty on behalf of certain projects.
“Thizs is to get people on the same page to minimizse the food fight where you have part of the state compete againstone another,” said Dale head of the California Businesws Transportation and Housing Agency. “What we’re doing is actinyg as a facilitator to help identifthe best” projects. The list’s authors said they hopedx that ranking projects would help the region get morestimulus “The Bay Area is the only regio in California that actuallyg attempted to prioritize,” Randolph “We think that’s We think that will make us more successful in gettintg attention, in getting those resources for thoses very high value projects.
” Projects on the Economic Institute’es wish list could be in for a big About $30 billion in federal stimulus money will be divviee up in Sacramento beforse going to various regions around California. Another $20 billion is expecteds to be distributed directly in the state by federao officials on adiscretionary basis. The chancee to get dollars from the federal stimulus program led to a flurrtof proposals. Bay Area authorities sifte d through almost570 suggestions. To make the cut, projects were supposed to spur job have regional impact and align with state programseand priorities, among other criteria.
The Economicd Institute called upon local experts in specific fields to judged proposals that fit at least one ofseven categories: transportation, water, energy/climate, workforce training and business development, science and innovation or housing. The vast majority of projects that made it to theEconomic Institute’s short list were from government agencies. A rang e of companies sought federal stimulus, too, saying that theit service would help boost the broader For example, a Berkeley-based firm callex Picture it Sold sought stimulus money to franchisr its home-staging business.
“We’re ready to move aheadc with thisplan immediately,” the compangy wrote in its “and we’ll help thousands of families and the wholed economy to recover.” The company’s idea did not make the Economivc Institute’s highest priority cut. But an appendix to the Economic Institute’s wish list includes every proposalit

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