Cities ready their stimulus wish lists

Like cities nationwide, Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace have their lists of job-creating projects ready to go.

They’ve lined up, cups in hand, as the incoming Obama administration fine tunes its proposal to create millions of new jobs with a stimulus package filled with what have been termed “shovel ready” construction projects.

The city of Mountlake Terrace has identified nine projects officials believe fit the “shovel ready” description.

Though it’s become common knowledge among city and county leaders that federal funds will be disbursed to states, no decision has been made about how much money states will get or what criteria will be used to decide who is awarded funding.

City manager John Caulfield said the city has two main concerns about a funding process that, so far, is hazy.

One concern is the criteria federal officials will use to award projects. He said the city’s also concerned about whether there will be enough contractors available to “do all this work.”

He said competition also could drive up costs.

“If the criteria are economic development and jobs, I would expect the projects listed for Mountlake Terrace certainly meet that,” he said.

Bill Franz, Lynnwood’s public works director, said billions of dollars are likely to come to states and the Puget Sound Regional Council, a public body made up of representatives from King, Snohomish, Pierce and Kitsap counties that makes economic development and transportation policy recommendations.

Franz, co-chair of the county’s Infrastructure Coordinating Committee, said Lynnwood’s projects list is a good candidate for approval because projects are so far along in the planning process that they’ve already cleared federal agency permitting and guidelines.

“It’s a lengthy process to get environmental approvals, right-of-way approvals,” he said. “We’re coming to the end of all those projects right now, right at the most opportune time.”

The proposed stimulus package, which Obama has said could be $775 billion — and others say should be even bigger — also comes at a good time for Lynnwood, Franz said, because local matching dollars have been in short supply lately.

“So what we’re asking for is that balance, just what Lynnwood’s short,” he said.

How much will be distributed, to whom and when are questions that should have answers in the weeks ahead, as Congress and the new administration hash out the details.

“What we are doing now is we have assembled lists of projects that would be shovel-ready in the near term and in the next couple of years,” said Rick Olson, the regional council’s communications director, “The whole purpose of which is to be in a state of readiness for when we select projects.”