Gary lands about $17M in stimulus cash

GARY | Eleven new police officers and six new city buses will soon be rolling on the streets of Gary thanks to federal stimulus money, city officials announced Monday.

The city expects to hire the new officers as soon as possible and send them to the police academy in early September, said LaTasha Hall, director of administrative services at the police department. More than $2 million in federal money will fund the officers for at least three years.

The buses will hit the road in February, replacing older buses that have racked up more than 500,000 miles, according to Daryl Lampkins, general manager of the Gary Public Transit Corporation.

Gary initially compiled a $400 million wish list of projects but had to scale back when it became clear most stimulus money would be routed through government grant programs and not given directly to cities, said Arlene Colvin, chief of staff for Mayor Rudy Clay.

"What we then did was put together the grant applications that we were familiar with, the grant applications that we best believed would help the city and various projects, the grant applications that we thought would do the best job and do the best good for the citizens of Gary," Colvin said.

That includes "shovel-ready" repaving projects on 35th Avenue between Jefferson and Martin Luther King Boulevard, 49th Avenue between Harrison Street and Broadway, and 15th Avenue at Interstate 65, as well as adding 10-foot high fencing around the airport to keep wildlife out.

Road repairs, energy efficient lighting, airport improvements, lead remediation and homeless prevention programs will also be paid for by the more than $17 million in grants Gary's received from the $787 billion available under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The road work is expected to be completed this fall, Director of Planning Chris Meyers said.

Clay and city department heads announced the federal awards at a Genesis Center event to increase perceived openness in government, Clay said.

"We believe in transparency in Gary, Indiana. Our door is always open. The red carpet is always out for our citizens," Clay said.