Pawtucket will spend its stimulus share to roll out the welcome mat

By JIM BARON

PROVIDENCE — While Woonsocket has yet to determine how it will spend $707,000 in federal highway stimulus dollars, Pawtucket Public Works Director John Carney said he plans to spend his city’s nearly $1 million share to welcome people to the city.

At a workshop for public works officials from across the state on Thursday, Carney said Pawtucket would like to spend the $932,000 it has coming from the state Department of Transportation’s RI-LEAP (Local Equity Aid Program) to create “gateway projects” at several points where people come into the city.
The border areas would be prettied up with stamped concrete sidewalks with brick edging and other improvements to give people a better first impression of Pawtucket as they enter by vehicle or on foot, as other Pawtucket gateways have been done up until now, driving home the message that “Pawtucket isn’t just an old mill city anymore.
“Most of our gateways are done,” Carney said, adding that he hoped he could complete the rest with the LEAP dollars
Highway Superintendent Ron Leitao said the state/federal assistance “will help us stretch out our bond money,” of which Pawtucket typically uses about $400,000 a year for streets and sidewalks.
The only question, Carney said, is whether the money will stretch far enough to allow the city to complete the rest of the gateway projects.
Michael DeBroisse, Woonsocket’s superintendent of solid waste and engineering, said officials there have not yet decided how to put the $707,000 the city has coming from the state program to share stimulus money.
“The director of public works has been out of town for this week, so when he gets back, I think we’re going to sit down, take a look at what streets qualify, the engineering person will go out there view the condition of the roadway, start doing some cost estimates and see where we fall within the money allocated to us.”
At the workshop, were the officials were given a rundown of the rules and regulations for submitting projects to be completed with the allocated money — even though the money has been divided among the state’s 39 cities and towns, they still must have a signed agreement with DOT for each project before work can begin — Central Falls Director of Public Works Joseph Nield was disappointed to learn he couldn’t use the $250,000 in new money for the purpose he had in mind – a partnership with the Pawtucket Water Supply Board to repave the streets where new water mains were put in – because that work is already underway, and that would violate DOT’s rules.
But don’t worry, Nield says he can find plenty of streets in the city that could use resurfacing. “Come on down, as soon as we hit the city line, I will show you” roadways in need of repair. “They’re pretty bad.”
Cumberland is designated to get the minimum amount the program doles out to communities — $250,000, because the city has less than 15 miles of local roads on the Federal Highway System; the formula is based on the number of eligible miles within a municipality – but Public Works Director Eugene Jeffers said, “we’re going to try to stretch it.
“We’re going to evaluate the money we have, of course it is not very much,” Jeffers said, and use it for repairs such as chip sealing and crack sealing.
Jeffers said he hopes to combine Cumberland’s efforts with Pawtucket, Central Falls, Lincoln and other local communities “to see if we can benefit from going out as a team; that sounds very hopeful.”
Lincoln, Glocester and North Smithfield are also in line for the $250,000 minimum allocation while Burrillville will get $414,000 and East Providence, $417,000.