How Should Flint Spend It’s $95 Million Dollar Pandemic Package?
Flint's Mayor Sheldon Neeley recently held a press conference where he opened the table for opinions on how Flint should spend its federal relief package valued at $95 million dollars.
This is a crazy amount of money to go into Flint and if used properly;y could completely change the landscape of Genesee County. The mayor did an awesome job of breaking down the categories that could use the most help.
Mayor Neeley, along with his administration, prepared a slideshow outlining the five categories that these funds can be distributed to, which includes economic development, crime prevention, home ownership, infrastructure and public health.
"We have more urgent needs in the public safety and the blight areas. So, we'll be looking into those areas because we know that this is an area that supports having a better outcome in our city. We definitely need more law enforcement officers, a level of retention for officers and also some of the pre and post crime fighting things that we want to focus in om," Mayor Neeley said. Source:NBC25.com
If I had one category to pick that the majority of the money should go to it would definitely be towards blight in the city of Flint. We have a serious problem with dilapidated houses in the city of Flint. If you drive down certain areas like Flint's east side you'll see a wave of abandoned homes. Houses like this completely destroy the economic value of a section of town. And with the influx of this money, we could literally rebuild a whole part of Flint. You only need to knock a house down once, and with a good chunk of Flint house being built in the late 70's/80's an overhaul could spark life into this once bright city.
What do you think? What should we do with all this stimulus money?