Stimulus Watch is an interesting website that provides a list of “shovel ready” Stimulus Package Projects around the United States that want to be funded by money emanating from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The projects that are listed are taken directly from a recent report of the US Conference of Mayors. Miami Mayor, Manny Diaz who is the President of the Conference, asked cities to submit projects that reflect their infrastructure needs, will create jobs and contribute to economic development. The result is a report containing 18,750 local infrastructure projects from 779 cities that are “ready to go.”
Stimulus Watch takes each of these projects and provides a platform for the public to voice their opinions, discuss and use their local knowledge to help determine the worthiness of each project through a rating system.
Critics of the site point to the fact that there are many notable omissions of critical projects, the list is a series of unrealistic wishes that have not been vetted and many of the projects are far from “shovel ready”. However, none of these criticisms can outweigh the benefits that a site like Stimulus Watch can and will bring.
Stimulus Watch is trying to do something the Obama Administration and Recovery.gov promise but are unlikely to ever achieve – real accountability. While I have commented previously that Recovery.gov should be commended because it goes further than any other federal government initiative to ensure transparency and accountability, the problem is that it is all back loaded. By the time we can hold the Administration and our state and local governments accountable the projects will already be underway and the money will be spent. Stimulus Watch is frontloading accountability by allowing the public to be an active constituent in the decision making process. It will also likely go further than any federal website will go after the money is spent by allowing local residents to discuss how well the money was used.
Frontloading accountability also helps businesses that hope to sell their goods or services to government and benefit from Stimulus Package Projects (which is after all part of the reason for the plan). Once a state or local government agency is granted money for a particular project they are going to be under pressure to show fast progress. Projects will be put out for bid and the speed at which the process is likely to happen may favor vendors that already work with the government. By highlighting projects that may be the recipients of money, smart vendors can use Stimulus Watch to track and be part of the discussion now. The site does a good job of allowing one to search for projects by state and city and I’d encourage any vendor who is looking to sell to government to check the projects that have been submitted in their region and contact the local cities for more information.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
We see that the President is gearing up a website for the “people” to take a look at the transparency and accountability of where ” our tax payer dollars” are going and we want to also see for instance where Michigan Governor Jennifer Grandholm will do the same.
We do not trust Governor Grandholm because she will not call a moratorium on foreclosures because she said the banks are more important that keeping people in their homes. The people also petitioned the Chair of the Banking and Finance Committee, Republican Senator Randy Richardville for a hearing regarding the housing crisis in Detroit and he called us terrorists and told us that since he was against calling a moratorium on foreclosures that we could not have a hearing.
The people in Detroit do not trust the legislatures in Lansing and we would like to know how we can make Lansing and the local government accountable and transparent when this stimulus money ” our money” is appropriated first to the governor and then to the Mayor. We want to know where every dollar is going because they are talking about cutting salaries and laying off government employees, yet, they have 2.5 billion dollars being appropriated to them from Washington. If the check is in the mail, why is the government workers being laid off or taking 10% pay cuts.
Jennifer Granholm is taking 2/3 of the 2 billion which leaves all of the cities to scramble for 1/3 that is left. We need to see where every dollar of the 2/3 going to the state is actually going.
Really,
A.H.
Andrea,
I am sure your sentiments are shared by many other people around the country who are worried about how their elected representatives will spend the stimulus money. I hope that President’ Obama’s Recovery.gov website will provide the transparency and accountability you are demanding.
Stuart