Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

By Philip Marcelo
Journal staff writer

Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline said today that if Congress made federal money to stimulate the national economy available to the city government by January, his administration could have ready 79 specific projects, representing $527 million in construction investment and 7,000 new jobs.

Cicilline was in Washington, D.C., this morning along with nine other mayors meeting with congressional leaders, including U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, to talk about the importance of getting federal money into city coffer sooner than later.

Congress is expected to have a bill proposing a multi-billion dollar infusion of federal money into states ready for when the next U.S. President takes office in January, but the final amount of aid and how it will be dispersed is still up in the air.

"If the objective is to move resources quickly, then the fastest and most efficient way is to send the money directly to cities," Cicilline said over the phone following the morning meetings. "We have public works departments and planning department to do this work and have been doing this work....This is an opportunity to create jobs, rebuild our infrastructure, and prepare our cities for the 21st century economy."

The mayors represented the U.S. Conference of Mayors, a national, nonpartisan coalition of municipal executives, and used the occasion to release the second of two reports identifying local infrastructure projects that could be started and completed in cities in the next two years during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol Building prior to their meeting with Pelosi and Reid.

Projects included transit and highway improvements, green jobs, school modernization, public safety and public housing, and projects that qualify for Community Development Block Grants.

Those projects, when combined with a list of city projects the mayors presented last month represents $98 billion worth of city projects that could be finished in two years, creating over one million jobs.

 Tags  Cicilline D.C. Providence Washington

Leave a comment

Please be civil. Vicious comments, personal attacks and profanity won't be published. Name and email are required; email address will not publish.

Name:

Email:

URL:  

Remember personal info?

Captcha:

Type the characters you see in the picture above.