http://rutlandherald.com/article/20141204/NEWS03/712049873
Published December 4, 2014 in the Rutland Herald
State awards $475K in planning grants
By Kevin O’Connor
Staff Writer
Nearly 50 Vermont cities and towns will share $475,000 in state municipal planning grants for a variety of projects, the Department of Housing and Community Development has announced.
“This program has kicked off hundreds of community-based initiatives,” department Commissioner Noelle Mackay said upon unveiling the list. “For example, few people outside of St. Albans know that its remarkable $30 million downtown transformation began with a $15,000 municipal planning grant to develop a new vision.”
The state has awarded more than $10 million in municipal planning grants to 230 cities and towns since 1998.
“Making the places we call home better,” Mackay said, “takes hard work.”
The latest grants, ranging from $3,800 to $35,000, will pay for planning and revitalization projects in 44 localities, with many updating municipal plans to boost “flood resiliency” or zoning and subdivision bylaws to balance the needs of the local economy with the environment.
Rutland County will share $52,930, with Chittenden receiving $7,955 to update its town plan with a focus on flood resilience, infrastructure and capital improvement, earth extraction and natural resource protection; Pawlet receiving $8,000 to update its town plan; Poultney receiving $6,710 to update plans for capital, downtown and water operations; Rutland Town receiving $6,555 to develop an updated future land use map; and Sudbury $7,955 to update its town plan.
Addison County will share $41,634, with Addison receiving $14,067 to evaluate smart-growth strategies, conserve natural and working land and consider land-use plan revisions to protect from future floods; and Waltham receiving $7,735 to gather public input for an updated town plan that supports state land-use goals.
Bennington County will share $65,795, with Bennington receiving $20,000 to help leverage state brownfield funds to redevelop several downtown properties; the towns of Dorset and Manchester receiving $35,000 to collaborate on creating a detailed economic development strategy; and Pownal receiving $10,795 to update its town plan with a focus on economic development, housing, municipal water needs and protection from future floods.
Windsor County will share $26,374, with Chester receiving $9,307 to update its town plan to match newly adopted unified development bylaws; Springfield receiving $9,387 to update its town plan to address flood resiliency and municipal capital needs; and Windsor receiving $7,680 to amend its zoning bylaws.
Communities served by the Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission will share $60,431, with Barnard receiving $11,483 for a major revision of the town plan; Bethel receiving $12,667 to update its zoning bylaws to including flood hazard regulations; Brookfield receiving $9,805 to update its town plan to address flood resiliency and economic development; Chelsea receiving $12,667 to finish revising its zoning and flood hazard regulations; Pittsfield receiving $9,805 to update its town plan with a focus on flood resiliency; and Strafford receiving $4,004 to draft a local hazard mitigation plan.
And Windham County will share $30,067, with Grafton receiving $6,084 to develop fluvial erosion hazard maps; Readsboro receiving $7,400 to revise its town plan; Whitingham receiving $3,800 to update its town plan with a focus school mergers, flooding and ambulance service; and Wilmington receiving $12,783 to update its town plan with a focus on storm water management.
RE: "Springfield receiving $9,387 to update its town plan to address flood resiliency and municipal capital needs"
ReplyDeleteWTH is the obstacle to prosperity in Springfield WRT flooding? What moron can't comprehend Springfield had the highest standard of living in Vermont and was a world leader in technology long before any flood protection existed? This study may as well address alien or zombie attacks. Mark these words, this money will go to line the pockets of one of the select few just like every other grant. Meanwhile, ambitious, young professionals avoid Springfield like an Ebola stricken death camp, and our community leaders entertain adding even more free housing for losers that refuse to work and consume disproportionate services. Pure madness.
OK, here's a constructive suggestion. Seize the grant money and put it to immediate use to fund disposal of Bishop's eyesores. Everyone, or at least those of us with equity in this rathole will benefit. Wouldn't that be a change?
The word "grant" in most of these cases is to be easily interchanged with "graft". 8:46 is spot on in asserting that this money will benefit the usual well-connected recipients of such "work" (which isn't really the proper term to describe what will actually occur). In the end, a flimsy document (plan or report or what have you) will be "delivered" and put on a shelf where it will age and grow stale, whereupon a year or two later the process will be repeated, but the new "effort" will be even more expensive the next time.
ReplyDeleteThis is all window dressing (at the taxpayers' expense), which only serves to obscure the inefficiencies, ineffectiveness, and uselessness of government at all levels. The injustice is that the duplicitous media "reports" it in ways such as this to portray it as some grand accomplishment by the political poseurs so that the lowly citizenry will continue to believe that their interests are being served.
What a con game!
I would like to personally donate to this cause.
ReplyDeleteAnyone know the address ?
Yeah, there was a lot of graft back in the Fifties in Springfield. There were grants for tens of thousands of dollars to study flooding, and then grants of millions to construct the dam in N. Springfield. Our present senator Dick McCormack toms me when first saw that dam, he thought, "Hmmm, pork...."
ReplyDeleteThen Hurricane Irene came through and carved his Bethel property into a peninsula (he was lucky not to lose his house). I told him how some of us here had gathered by the Park Street bridge and watched the floodwaters surge angrily by, with the hand of God sparing us the wrath He wrought upon the sinners of Bethel. McCormack opined that maybe the flood control dam had something to do with it, but I figured him for one of those sinful liberals who was just trying to deny he'd be going to hell with all those people who squandered that money in the Fifties on a pork barrel project.
Clearly, this $9.4k is just as misspent.
Ah, the constant "drip" from the progressive faucet, which has now become a flood of national debt, but let's spend more on useless little efforts that amount to nothing more than paper. The irony in you point, Chuck, is that thanks to your very own progressive movement, the Springfield Dam could never be built today because of the endless amounts of red tape that liberals and their "environmental concerns" have bound up the nation with! So instead of projects involving concrete and steel which would yield a significant benefit, we are left with limp wristed politicians doling out little gifts to the "Power Point Rangers" so that they can tap away on a computer for a few hours and turn in a nicely bound design or report that can then be shelved and "updated" during the next round of dole outs!
DeleteBy the way, Chuck, the only dams being constructed today are the metaphorical ones added to every year by clueless politicians that are holding back economic advancement in America and sending the United States into decline in the 21st century.
As for McCormack, he's just another windsock politician. Had there been no damage to his property, he'd have been extolling the virtues of flood control and urging more government spending. But since his property was damaged, he's instead suspect of the current flood control plan and therefore will urge more government spending to study that, too. Either way, he's like a termite in virgin wood, boring his way through it and wantonly gobbling up and spending as many tax dollars as he can, which will ultimately lead to structural collapse.
Maybe the statehouse could use a nice flood to flush out all those termites! Let's study that. But first, we'll need a grant!
You're trying to have it both ways, 8:20: "We should spend government money to build dams but can't because of government regulation, but we shouldn't spend money finding out what happens when floods hit."
DeleteThis is the sort of logic that helped us bring peace to the Middle East.
Nice diversion, Chuck. Take the focus off of the waste and just go along with the big spending status quo, devoid of any focus. Just keeping doling it out there on thousands of fatuous little escapades that produce nothing rather than targeting the spending where it can produce meaningful results. Why, Chuck, bravo! That's redistribution of wealth at its finest - the kind that leads advanced nations back into the Third World!,
ReplyDelete