Council ranks 11 projects for federal funding

CITY HALL — Officials today plan to send a list of projects totaling $21.66 million to the city’s congressional delegation for possible funding after the City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to approve their priority rankings.

The list of 11 projects that range from a new compressed natural gas fueling station to a pool at Pacific Park are part of the city’s annual appropriations requests to Congress and are separate from the $155.8-million wish list the council offered up for consideration under President Barack Obama’s coming federal stimulus package.

Among the 11 projects, the City Council voted to rank a $1-million request to help fund a new Glendale-based emergency communications systems used by five other cities as the highest priority. The radio-based system allows different police and fire departments to receive calls over the same frequency.

The cities that use the Interagency Communications Interoperability System are currently pushing a major multimillion-dollar revamp of the system at the federal level, and so placing a high priority on the item would show a local commitment to the project, City Manager Jim Starbird said.

Rounding out the top five requests in descending order were $2.5 million for a new compressed natural gas fueling station for city buses; $2.5 million for improvements at four at-grade rail crossings along the San Fernando Road corridor; $2.42 million for five natural-gas-powered Beeline buses; and another $800,000 to install fixed-point video recorders at known crime hot spots to target gang-related activities.

Four items on the list — including funding for a new “smart” utility meters system, a new pool at Pacific Park, improvements at the historic barn at Deukmejian Wilderness Park and the railroad crossing upgrades — were also on the wish list sent to the state last week to compete among hundreds of other projects statewide for federal stimulus funding.

Starbird’s assistant, John Takhtalian, said the duplication should not affect the merits of the projects. And if one project received partial funding, city officials would “try to close the gap by pursuing funding on the other list.”