Thursday, February 10, 2011

Bay Area names top stimulus priorities - San Francisco Business Times:

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Projects ranked among the highest in the plan cover a wide range of proposaleincluding high-speed rail construction, extending the BART line to San Jose and borinfg another roadway in the East Bay’s Caldecotyt Tunnel. Together, the highest-priority projects are seekingf morethan $7 billion in stimulus money. The priorityh list also includes a new stem cell research facilitt at the inMarin County, energyt efficiency and solar retrofits of public and othed buildings in San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland; energy conversions to LED streetlights; transit-orienter development projects and workforce training and placement for laid-off “This plan is designed to maximizs our region’s share of federalp stimulus funding and otherr state support that will benefit the Bay Area in both the near and said Sean Randolph, CEO of the , whichb was charged with compiling the The top 85 projects were classified as priorities for the Bay Another 72 projects were consideresd “significant” but given a slightly lower rankinh because they did not have the scale or regiona l impact of the most highly ranked Those projects include things like a desalination project in the Montarza Water and Sanitary District, buildint a clean technology demonstration manufacturing center in San Jose and outfittintg Burlingame city buildings with solar panels.
The which can be found onlinseat www.bayareaeconomy.org/recovery, was the culmination of a three-month vetting The report was sent to the . That statse agency, which requested that other metropolitabn regions around the state submitsimilad plans, will now take all thosed plans and help coordinate with cities and counties to lobbyy the federal government on behalg of certain projects. “This is to get peoplre on the same page to minimize the food fight wherde you have parts of the state competed againstone another,” said Dale head of the California Businesws Transportation and Housing Agency.
“What we’re doinvg is acting as a facilitator to help identifygthe best” projects. The list’s authors said they hoped that rankiny projects would help the regionh get morestimulus money. “Thwe Bay Area is the only region in California that actually attemptedto prioritize,” Randolph “We think that’s important. We think that will make us more successful ingetting attention, in getting those resourcexs for those very high value projects.
” Projects on the Economidc Institute’s wish list could be in for a big About $30 billion in federapl stimulus money will be divviefd up in Sacramento before going to various regionw around California. Another $20 billio n is expected to be distributed directly in the state by federal officials on adiscretionary basis. The chancee to get dollars from the federakl stimulus program led to a flurryof proposals. Bay Area authoritiesx sifted through almost570 suggestions. To make the cut, projectx were supposed to spurjob growth, have regionak impact and align with state programss and priorities, among other criteria.
The Economix Institute called upon local experts in specifi fields to judge proposals that fit at least one ofsevenj categories: transportation, water, energy/climate, workforce training and business development, science and innovation or housing. The vast majorithy of projects that made it to theEconomicf Institute’s short list were from government agencies. A ranger of companies sought federal too, saying that theid service would help boost thebroader economy. For a Berkeley-based firm calledx Picture it Sold sought stimulus money to franchisreits home-staging business.
“We’re ready to move ahead with this plan the company wrote inits “and we’ll help thousands of families and the whole econom to recover.” The company’s idea did not make the Economic Institute’s highest priority cut. But an appendis to the Economic Institute’s wish list include s every proposalit received.

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