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City of Fort Wayne Hopes to Cash In on Infrastructure Improvements From New Obama Administration

By Jeff Neumeyer
June 18, 2010 Updated Dec 29, 2008 at 6:45 PM EST

FORT WAYNE, IN (Indiana's NewsCenter) --- Officials with the City of Fort Wayne are hoping the incoming Obama administration will deliver some late Christmas gifts to boost jobs and the condition of local infrastructure.

Mayor Tom Henry's administration would love to see an Obama Presidency hand over ten million dollars to help the city purchase the old OmniSource land on North Calhoun Street, and get it ready for re-sale to a prospective developer.

Mayor Henry's staff has also said it would like to get 6.5 million dollars in federal money to finish widening Ardmore Avenue between Jefferson Boulevard and Taylor Street.

After the Obama team came out with an industrious goal of shaping up the nation's neglected infrastructure, Fort Wayne joined the heads of other cities in earmarking projects that are on its "to do" list.

Ozzie Mitson/Legislative & Business Liaison: " We've compiled a list of projects that we could get started within 120 days and would have an immediate effect. We have 250-million dollars worth of combined sewer projects that we could start immediately, so anything we would get would be of great assistance."

The city has also put down 8-million dollars for re-construction of the Martin Luther King Bridge on Clinton Street over the Saint Mary's River.

All told, there are about 4 pages worth of projects the city is asking for federal help on.

Considering the rough economy, the question arises, how does the government pay for every city's requests?

There is virtually no way that the full 73-billion dollars in upgrade proposals will be honored.

The Obama administration does favor the so called “Main Street Economic Recovery” effort as a way to spend the country out of the slowdown, by force feeding construction and the jobs that would be created by doing the work.

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