Steve Kagen's Bridge To No Where Earmark

From the Post Crescent.

Is this Steve Kagen's "Bridge to Nowhere"? Kagen plants an earmark (I thought he was against earmarks) and Outagamie County will flip the bill! By the way, which county does Steve Kagen come from? MMMMMM let's see, Door, Oconto, Shawano, getting warmer, Brown, BINGO....................... OUTAGAMIE!

Outagamie County, you got 7.5 million to spare!

"Outagamie County can't confiscate Little Chute bridge money

By Susan Squires • Post-Crescent staff writer • March 10, 2009

APPLETON — Outagamie County, which refused to pay $750,000 toward Little Chute's proposed $7.5 million bridge to Island Park, could end up effectively paying for the whole thing.
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The county learned earlier this year the state has counted $6 million for the Little Chute bridge against its "entitlement," a formula that allocates federal and state money for local bridge repairs and replacements. County Highway Commissioner Al Geurts estimates the $6 million is about 14 years worth of smaller bridge projects.

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And now, the state says the county doesn't have the authority to reappropriate the money, which politicians, including U.S. Rep. Steve Kagen, D-Appleton, helped persuade the DOT in 2007 to earmark for a bridge to a 5.8-acre island park the village hopes to develop.

The current bridge's lift mechanism is inoperable, and the anticipated reopening of the Fox River locks system to boat traffic means either removing it or replacing it with a functional lift. The island is inaccessible without the bridge.

Rod Clark, director of the DOT's Bureau of Transit, Local Roads, Railroads and Harbors, said counties can shuffle money for their own projects, but after Outagamie County bowed out of the Little Chute bridge deal last fall, the state sent a project agreement to Little Chute. Now, the project money is presumed to be Little Chute's.

"If they choose not to sign it, we would say this project is no longer active, then the county would have access to the money," Clark said.

Officials from the village and county plan to send a joint delegation to meet with state Transportation Secretary Frank Busalacchi. Little Chute wants to build the bridge, but doesn't want the rest of the county's bridges to suffer because of it." Outagamie County can't confiscate Little Chute bridge money | Postcrescent.com | Appleton Post-Crescent