Something I hear fairly frequently is this statement:
“Well, I don’t know where all that infrastructure money the federal government loves to talk about went to. I sure haven’t seen any of it around here.”
Yeah, you have. You just didn’t know what you were looking at, Bubba and Darryl. Another thing, too, is that you probably don’t realize how much this stuff COSTS and it does cost like “who raised the glory”, “rip”, or however you like to put it. It’s EXPENSIVE.
Now then, I’ll show you some pictures and maybe we’ll all get the idea and say, “OH, YEAH! I do remember that! And I remember them doing…” So here we go…
This is just one bridge of many, but it is historic. Horace King was a Black man who built many bridges in the area and he was good at what he did. In a time when educating Black men to do the kind of advanced engineering that a bridge takes, he taught himself. Most of the bridges have fallen into disrepair, but a few of them are being restored. This is one of them. It takes time, skill, and grant money to do this kind of tedious and skilled work with wood. So here is one place some of that money went. This wasn’t the only bridge, by the way. It was just the one I could find a picture for in Troup County.
If you’ve ever driven Hwy 27 around Pine Mountain, you’ve been under this railroad bridge. I don’t remember that bridge not being there. I have no idea when it was built, but it couldn’t have been safe. After months of work, Hwy 27 has finally been re-opened because this bridge has been replaced with a safer one and the highway underneath is wider and safer, too. If you have traveled this area or live there, I know you remember what a PAIN that detour was. That was infrastructure money at work. It was LONG overdue.
Oglethorpe Bridge just outside of Columbus into Alabama was repaired. Now I don’t know how many Muscogee people had to cross this thing, but I’m pretty sure they probably had to work with people from Alabama who drove across that bridge to come to work and who were impacted by closures and traffic problems one direction or the other. You heard about it plenty. You don’t work on a bridge that size without causing problems. It just doesn’t happen.
The work on I-85 was my personal favorite for quite some time. I’m still not positive that DOT is completely done out there (are they ever?) but the orange barrels are not quite as numerous. That was infrastructure money. Putting in all the safety pylons and cables was part of that. Removing excess vegetation on the easements was part of that money. You get the picture. Or should I say PICTURES?
In LaGrange, the Griggs Recreation Center project got a TREMENDOUS boost from the infrastructure money. Originally, the community was told that all the center was going to get was some new basketball courts. Now they are anticipating getting to use a whole new recreation center that has many amenities that will make summers for entire families much more enjoyable.
According to local news outlets, the work on the new pool is supposed to be finished in time for the summer. Area residents are said to be anxious to try it out. Other amenities will be pickleball, a splash park for the small ones, meeting rooms, and other recreational areas. This was all made possible by the Infrastructure Bill and grants applied for by the Recreation Department. Virtually no funding from the City was required.
Here’s one that people don’t see and don’t think about, but it did get a sizable chunk of money in most of the counties around the State. Water treatment plants were in a word, miserable state and getting worse. Now whether that was in treating water to come INTO your homes for you to drink, wash, and flush toilets with, or treat the water in the sewage, water treatment is just not a particularly “sexy” thing to have on our minds, but it is vitally necessary. Those plants needed repairs and replacement and pipes needed attention. Not going to lie to you-those things are not cheap. This is one of those things that you don’t want to think about, but if you don’t fix it when it needs to be fixed, the price tag just keeps climbing and most of the counties were almost to the “OMG it costs how much?”
There were some other things that fell under the Public Works heading. Most counties tried to spread the money around as far as they could possibly make it go. Truth of the matter is that as big as the bill “looked”, it wasn’t nearly big enough nor did it cover all of the things that need to be covered. Our “Republican” Congress balked at spending that kind of money on their own voters/states, which, to me anyway, is really strange, because after the bill was signed and the checks were cut, every last one of them ran back home to take pictures claiming, “Look what I did for you!” No, they didn’t. They voted against it. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM DID.
Yes, but I want to know how MY county spent the money. You can find out. The nerds at the government put it on the web and you can drill down and with enough patience, you can even, in some cases, see amounts and the names of departments and individuals who got the money. If you want to know how it was spent, though, you’ll probably have to go ask them. I’m not clear on the details of how this works, but normally when you get a grant, you have to show the entity that gave you the money that you did, in fact, spend the money like you said you would and show the receipts down to the penny for everything. The financial sheets have to balance out. I’m sure it’s possible to have fraud. I just don’t know how likely that is.
Ask your COUNTY AND CITY OFFICIALS about where the money was spent. They have the records. I promise Georgia got its share of the money, and it was spent right in front of your face. You just did not realize what was happening at the time. In fact, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg took some ribbing about it with some Democrats wanting signs put up at work sites that said, “This is Joe Biden’s Infrastructure Money at work!” He conceded that it probably should have been considered in the plans.
There will be more to come IF, and it’s a big IF, we can get another Democratic Trifecta in Washington, and IF we can get something like that in Georgia. We need lots of changes here. We won’t get them with the “MAGAdonians” in charge. We need Democrats in our state government and I want to be there to help start the change.
Will you help by voting for me this year? I’m running for the State Senate and I want to help make real change happen in Georgia.
Support my campaign by clicking the button below and please consider making your contribution a monthly donation. Even small donations of $20 help tremendously. Please do it now while it is on your mind. Thank you.
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P.O. Box 3816, LaGrange, GA 30241 http://www.wright4georgia.com ellen@wright4georiga.com
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