Amesbury & Governor Patrick's Plan for the Federal Stimulus $$

Earlier this month, a Gubernatorial Task Force released a report on how the Commonwealth should spend Federal Stimulus monies. CLICK HERE to go to the Task Force's website.

CLICK HERE to read the Task Force's report. The Report looks at (primarily capital) spending in these areas:
a) Energy
b) Education Facilities
c) Transportation
d) Information Technology (including electronic medical records)
e) Private Development (including broadband expansion)
f) State Facilities and Courts
g) Municipal Facilities

You may have heard about communities submitting lists of 'shovel-ready' projects to the Commonwealth. You can read a list of projects that the Task Force and its Working Groups deemed 'shovel-ready' by CLICKING HERE. As I read the report, listed projects are prime candidates for receiving funds made available by the federal Recovery Act. That does NOT mean that Massachusetts will in fact receive monies to cover the $9,589,367,163 worth of projects listed.

Where does Amesbury fit it in this? A word search of this 78 page list shows that one Amesbury project made it on to this list: $2,439,045 for the planned Transportation Center in the Lower Millyard. This project is in fact an important one to Amesbury and one of the 2 keys to the redevelopment of the Lower Millyard (the 2nd is the relocation of the Department of Public Works building).

The Task Force actually received many more projects for review from municipalities around Massachusetts. CLICK HERE to read a list of received projects that did NOT make it on to the list. Amesbury actually submitted 33 projects to the Task Force for review, including monies for road, drain and sidewalk upgrades, and other projects. Though I had not seen news of it in the local press, I was pleased to see that Amesbury had submitted projects worth tens of millions for review (we have extensive infrastructure needs, to say the least).

The projects listed in this report are all capital projects, meaning infrastructure investments. I believe that the Recovery Act may also have monies for other purposes, such as public safety and education, so hopefully we will have opportunities for other monies as the come down in coming months. The Transportation Center was already funded through the Commonwealth's Transportation bond bill, so it looks like Amesbury doesn't stand to pick up new projects; this looks more like the Commonwealth may use Stimulus $$ to replace Commonwealth $$ for this particular project. Stay tuned!!