{"id":2178,"date":"2009-06-15T10:18:38","date_gmt":"2009-06-15T15:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=2178"},"modified":"2013-02-11T20:38:16","modified_gmt":"2013-02-12T01:38:16","slug":"council-talking-stimulus-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/news\/city-council\/2009\/06\/15\/council-talking-stimulus-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Council talking stimulus money"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Read the full agenda <a href=\"#A0\">below<\/a> and follow the council meeting live on the Raleigh Public Record&#8217;s Twitter feed<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The Raleigh City Council has a set of issues related to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act before councilors this week. Council could also approve a new consultants to review and rewrite the city&#8217;s entire zoning code in order to implement the new comprehensive plan, expected to pass this summer.<\/p>\n<p>The state Department of Environment and Natural Resources has approved a $465,000 loan to upfit nine fire stations for rain water harvesting. Half of the loan will be forgiven and the rest has a zero-percent interest rate. The city will have to pick up $109,000 of the tab to fully fund the $574,000 project. If council approves the grant, the city&#8217;s share of the cost will come from funding mean to upgrade the Newton Road culvert.<\/p>\n<p>Raleigh City Manager Russell Allen wants council&#8217;s permission to apply for a $3.8 million energy efficiency grant from the U.S. Department of Energy&#8217;s stimulus funding. Allen&#8217;s grant proposal says the grant would create or retain 117 jobs. See the proposal on the city&#8217;s website for full descriptions of the projects, and here&#8217;s a summary of selected ideas:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Weatherization and energy efficiency loans &#8211; The city wants to be able to make revolving loans to residents at or above 200 percent of the poverty level. The city would find a non-profit organization to administer the two loan programs.<\/li>\n<li>Climate action plan &#8211; The city manager&#8217;s proposal says he wants to &#8220;develop a detailed comprehensive city-wide strategic energy plan to reduce fossil fuel consumption and emissions and to increase energy efficiency within the City of Raleigh operations.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Electric cars &#8211; The city wants $77,000 from the grant to convert seven city vehicles to electric. The request also proposes $15,000 for two electric car recharging stations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Raleigh Police Department received a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to pay for police overtime and in-car digital cameras.<\/p>\n<p>In order to implement the new comprehensive plan, which is expected to pass this summer, the city&#8217;s planning department wants to completely rewrite the zoning code. The city put out a request for proposals for a consultant. Austin-based Code Solutions submitted the low bid and city administration wants council approval to negotiate the contract with the company.<\/p>\n<p>City staff wants council approval to get new funding for $80.3 million in bonds. The report on refunding the five General Obligation Bonds says the city could save $1.7 million by getting a lower interest rate on the bonds.<\/p>\n<p>The city will start work on a new stream restoration project soon. Raleigh-based Fluvial Solutions submitted the low bid to restore part of a small creek near Cameron Village at Small Drive Park and Edna Metz Wells Park. The bid is for $783,000 to do work in both parks.<\/p>\n<p>The issue of requiring deposits from city utility customers is back at council after councilors disagreed over a proposed $100 deposit. Council sent the idea to the Budget and Economic Development Committee two weeks ago. The committee is back with a recommendation to require a $50 deposit.<\/p>\n<p><a style=\"margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block; text-decoration: underline;\" title=\"View City Council Agenda5-16 on Scribd\" name=\"A0\" href=\"http:\/\/www.scribd.com\/doc\/16442129\/City-Council-Agenda516\">City Council Agenda5-16<\/a> <object width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" data=\"http:\/\/d.scribd.com\/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=16442129&amp;access_key=key-242zau60hiiclpl5mf1a&amp;page=1&amp;version=1&amp;viewMode=\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\"><param name=\"id\" value=\"doc_221583073756044\" \/><param name=\"name\" value=\"doc_221583073756044\" \/><param name=\"align\" value=\"middle\" \/><param name=\"quality\" value=\"high\" \/><param name=\"play\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"loop\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"scale\" value=\"showall\" \/><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"opaque\" \/><param name=\"devicefont\" value=\"false\" \/><param name=\"bgcolor\" value=\"#ffffff\" \/><param name=\"menu\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/d.scribd.com\/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=16442129&amp;access_key=key-242zau60hiiclpl5mf1a&amp;page=1&amp;version=1&amp;viewMode=\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Raleigh City Council has a full agenda this week, including new stimulus funds approved and more requests, stream restoration, redoing the entire city&#8217;s zoning code and refinancing bonds. Councilors could also vote on the revised $50 deposit for city water customers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}