Stimulus money pouring into Bay Area
Projects, studies and businesses are benefiting from grants, loans and contracts.
By Thomas Peele and Josh Richman Bay Area News Group
Call it fire money. In Oakland, $50,000 is going to a nonprofit best known for its fiery performance art.
Call it wine money. In NapaCounty, $54 million is going to protect the tracks on which a train hauls tourists through vineyards as they sip chardonnay.
Call it Indian money. In SonomaCounty, $272,578 is going to provide housing assistance to two tribes that reap millions a year from lucrative gambling casinos, including one in ContraCostaCounty.
Call it nightclub money. In Berkeley, $499,384 is going for field studies of what kind of booze young people pound down in bars and other hot spots.
By any other name, stimulus money is what it is: an infusion of government cash by either grant, low interest loan or contracted service.
More than $1 billion from the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is flowing freely into the Bay Area, flooding university research coffers and boosting transportation projects such as the long-awaited Caldecott Tunnel expansion and the BART-OaklandAirport people mover, funding high-tech baggage screening equipment at San FranciscoInternationalAirport and improvements to Caltrain in San MateoCounty.
Money also is going to nearly every city in the region to help fund police services, boost Section 8 housing and upgrade infrastructure. Hundreds of arts groups, social researchers and private businesses are also receiving grants and low-interest loans.
The region is also receiving one of the largest individual awards in the country for green energy: a $535 million loan to Solyndra Inc. for the construction of a factory in Fremont where it will produce rooftop solar panels for commercial buildings.
Company officials announced in late December they intend to take the company public to raise more capital to leverage against the loan, which the Department of Energy administers.
Congress passed the stimulus bill in February, hoping for a massive jump start to the crippled economy. California's share topped $30 billion. Applicants from theater companies to stem-cell researchers scurried to submit grant applications alongside scores of government agencies.
In the Bay Area, StanfordUniversity received more than $83 million in research grants and a $90 million government contract to study ultrafast scientific instruments, according to government data. The Berkeley Repertory Theatre got $50,000 to preserve jobs.
What is the stimulus money?
What items is the stimulus money spent on?
Define the ARRA, the amount, and its purpose.
Where is the stimulus money coming from and who will pay it back?
How will the ARRA affect the U.S. economy?