ST. LOUIS --
UPDATE, March 5, 4:15 p.m.:
Comments continue to flood our Web site as mid-Missouri residents react to the opinions of St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay.
In a national story on CNN, Mayor Slay said it was wrong for MoDOT to spend the state's first stimulus dollars on the new Highway 17 bridge in Tuscumbia.
We talked to Miller County Presiding Commissioner Tom Wright by phone. He says Mayor Slay's comments hit a nerve in the Tuscumbia community.
Wright says it feels like a case of David and Goliath and says the 2800 people who travel across the 75-year-old bridge everyday know how dangerous it is.
We also talked to MoDOT officials who, like Wright, disagree with Mayor Slay's comments.
"We're trying to move projects forward quickly," says MoDOT Central District Engineer Roger Schwartz. "This stimulus bill was intended to create jobs and the sooner that we can get projects moving forward, we want to do that. Its not that there's not going to be projects in the St. Louis area."
"There will be. Its just a matter of we started with the projects that were the most ready at the time," said Schwartz. "And this bridge project is one we were working on."
Mayor Slay complained that only $2 million in stimulus money will be spent on roads in St. Louis.
But we checked and found that, while that is true - $150 million will be spent in the greater St. Louis metro area - that's over a quarter of MoDOT's stimulus money.
Slay said this was an illegal use of MoDOT's money. Schwarte says that is not true.
Stimulus money was to be used in economically distressed areas and Schwartz says Miller County fits that bill with the high unemployment numbers in the area.
We forwarded several of your comments on to Mayor Slay's office. The mayor and his staff refused to comment.
Original Story, Mar. 4:
The mayor of St. Louis is mad that federal stimulus money is being spent here in mid-Missouri.
Mayor Francis Slay thinks that money should be directed to his city.
The Miller County town of Tuscumbia got a lot of attention last month as the first place to use the fund from the newly signed stimulus package.
The money is being used to replace the crumbling, 75-year-old Highway 17 bridge over the Osage River.
The 1,000 foot bridge was recently closed to large trucks because of structural concerns.
Mayor Slay is not happy about the bridge. He says stimulus money in Missouri is going to rural, far flung projects.
"This is an insult to the city of St. Louis, a violation of federal law," said Slay. "And I think they're spending this money contrary to the intent of congress."
Of all the $4 billion in stimulus money coming to Missouri, $600 million will be spent on transportaiton projects. But the mayor says it would best be spent sending people to work in high unemployment areas like in the city of St. Louis.
But Missouri's Department of Transportation will spend just $2 million inside the city limits, only enough says the mayor, to repave a road.
MoDOT says $200 million will be spent around St. Louis and that its projects are on a "worst is first" priority.
And the Osage Rver Bridge in Tuscumbia tops the list.
Up the road, at the Red Oak Inn, owner Wes Holton says MoDOT has been promising a new bridge for years. It's only the federal money - the Obama money - he says, that has suddenly got things going.
"You ask me they should spend all the money on things like this instead of buying the bankers out," said Holton.
There will be 30 jobs here directly connected to this $8.5 million project. That's a cost of about $283,000 dollars per job.
But it's estimated the project will idirectly create or save 245 more jobs from steel workers, concrete haulers, even the gas stations supplying fuel.
Still, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay says the Osage River Bridge project is just plain wrong, in the middle of nowhere and nowhere on the road to recovery.
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