Tag Archives: economic stimulus

City could fire lobbyists

Columbia City Council members could fire the city’s lobbyists tomorrow as a way to save money. Council members meet at 9 a.m. for a work session (agenda here.) Last week, Councilwoman Belinda Gergel surprised everyone with a motion to fire the city’s three state lobbyists. Under Gergel’s plan, Teresa Florence, the city’s director of governmental affairs, would [...]
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City extends contract for stimulus grant writer

Earlier this year, Columbia officials formed an “office of the stimulus” and hired a professional grant writer whose only job is to go after federal stimulus grants. Chris Segars’ contract expired in June, but Columbia officials are not finished with her yet. Last week, council members unanimously approved a contract extension through June 2010. The contract [...]
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City sees opportunity with broadband stimulus

Columbia, Richland County and Benedict College officials are meeting today to discuss how they can team up to go after $7.2 billion in stimulus money for broadband technology. Columbia is eyeing the money to help with its plan to install super-smart security cameras that can hear gunshots. It’s not the cameras that are expensive, it’s the fiber [...]
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How many cops did S.C. get from stimulus?

CORRECTION: This post was corrected at 6:03 p.m. on 7/28/2009. An earlier version of this post used national numbers instead of S.C. numbers. Answer: 139. All together, S.C. police departments requested 775 officers. South Carolina received 2.96 percent of the 4,699 officers awarded. To put it another way, South Carolina received 2.08 percent of nearly $1 billion. Here’s [...]
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Columbia to hire 18 police officers from stimulus grant

The Columbia Police Department has been awarded $2.8 million in stimulus money to hire 18 police officers. The grant money will pay the officers’ salaries for three years, and taxpayers will pick up the cost after that. Columbia Police Chief Tandy Carter said he would distribute the 18 officers to where they are most needed, which most [...]
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