Shovel Ready In West Hartford

Governor Rell has asked CT municipalities to provide her with a list of "Shovel Ready" jobs, now that President Obama is getting his jobs program prepared, which of course will be funded by more stimulus money.

The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities just came out with a report that lists all the projects and dollar amounts for each Connecticut town. 94 Municipalities responded with $2.6 Billion dollars listed.

The report begins:

The projects on this list include a wide range of infrastructure projects that will benefit our state -- from road and bridge projects to mass transit to fiber optic/broadband.
Taken as a whole they will have a significant positive impact on the quality of life in Connecticut.
Funding for these projects would get people to work quickly and help build a solid platform on which Connecticut’s state and local economies can grow.

In this report West Hartford has identified only $9.5 Million worth of projects. It would seem that with the cancellation of certain Capital Improvement Programs that we could have done a little better than this.

In comparison, Hartford has asked for $223 Million, East Hartford $74 Million, Bloomfield $23.5 Million, Greenwich $15.2 Million, Manchester $27.2 Million

The shovel ready projects identified in West Hartford were:
$500,000, Mt Rd ‐ Albany Ave,
$5,000,000, arterial street improvements,
$2,000,000 widening sidewalks along arterials,
$1,000,000, Trout Brook trail complete remaining sections,
$1,000,000, Improve storm water sewer system

What about the pool repairs? (isn't that infrastructure?)
Garage Lighting and other Town Lighting upgrades (for future energy conservation)
Modular Classroom upgrades (Newtown is asking for that)
School security upgrades (New Milford is asking for that)
Solar Panels for all Town buildings (also energy savings and Oxford is asking for that)

The list is interesting reading in any case.