The rush is on for President-elect Barack Obama's stimulus money, with region cities submitting $417 million in infrastructure projects to the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
MORE: Download Nortwest Indiana's "Ready-to-Go" infrastructure project list.
MORE: The United States Conference of Mayor's Web site.
In all, eight Northwest Indiana communities had responded as of Thursday to the conference's call with 143 projects ranging from sewers to wind turbines.
"We didn't hold anything back," Lake Station Mayor Keith Soderquist said. "We put everything in there."
In fact, in terms of the sheer number of projects, no city in the region submitted as many as Lake Station. The city of 13,948 people put in for 70 projects worth a total of $48.2 million.
Several of the proposals are "green projects" such as wind turbines and a geothermal heating and cooling system for the new municipal building the city wants to construct. Total projected cost for just those two green projects is $950,000.
"You look at the cost, it's quite large," Soderquist said. "But the new president-elect has a priority on this. So if he's willing to help us out, that would be great."
Some communities have submitted only traditional infrastructure projects such as repaving roads, installing sewer lines and reconstructing highways. Lansing wants to do $2.85 million worth of street resurfacing with the stimulus money.
But other items on the area's wish list include security lights, fire engines, police cars, police canine units and two new school resource officers.
Obama wants to spend up to $1 trillion on ready-to-go infrastructure projects to create or preserve up to 2.5 million jobs over two years, according to transition team aides. Without the stimulus, Obama's advisers believe unemployment could rise above 9 percent and not begin to come down until 2011.
In all, 427 U.S. cities submitted a total of 11,391 infrastructure projects costing a total of $73 billion to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, according to a recent news release from the conference. It claims the projects would create 847,641 jobs.
And the U.S. Conference of Mayors is not the only group collecting projects to eventually be submitted to Congress or federal agencies.
Local communities also have been told to submit lists of highway projects to local metropolitan planning organizations like the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission. Those lists are slated to be submitted to INDOT by Feb. 1.
That's the approach being taken by Valparaiso, which has not yet submitted its projects, Mayor Jon Costas said.
"There's very little definition on how this process will occur, and my guess is the projects will have to come through a group like NIRPC that can weigh the needs of the region. It's not as clear as some people might think, but we intend to work with NIRPC and they will work with INDOT," Costas said, adding that the city has a lot of combined sewer projects ready to go.
In addition, individual congressional representatives and federal agencies are accumulating lists of community priorities.
The city of Gary submitted the most expensive wish list to the U.S. Conference of Mayors. The city of 102,746 people handed in 24 proposed projects totalling $248.5 million.
The largest project on Gary's list would be the building of 700 replacement housing units at a cost of $105 million, according to the list available at the U.S. Conference of Mayors Web site.
The Gary list also includes $29.6 million for projects at Gary/Chicago International Airport that would encompass new taxiways, hangars and firefighting equipment.
Times staff writer Phil Wieland and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
