[CPEO-BIF] Community Benefits for Detroit international bridge

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

Local communities deserve benefits from bridge project

Editorial
Detroit Free Press (MI)
June 15, 2011

So-called community benefits agreements have become commonplace in  
large public works projects, especially in urban neighborhoods. It's  
easy to see why. Too often, the benefits of construction projects  
have been promised to low-income communities that never see them.  
They get the pollution and traffic; people outside the neighborhood  
get the jobs and reap the benefits.
A bill introduced by state Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, would help  
make sure that doesn't happen in Michigan, at least not on  
international crossing projects. It requires a community benefits  
agreement for the New International Trade Crossing (NITC) in  
southwest Detroit's Delray community. Tlaib's bill would also apply  
to any new international border crossing development in Michigan.
Legislators should approve the bill. It's a reasonable plan to ensure  
that communities derive certain benefits from the projects they host  
and continue to support them. Such a measure would have likely  
avoided the contentious relationship between southwest Detroit and  
the Ambassador Bridge. Ideally, Tlaib's proposal should become part  
of more comprehensive legislation enabling the NITC project to move  
forward.
...

For the entire editorial, see
http://www.freep.com/article/20110615/OPINION01/106150388/Editorial- 
Local-communities-deserve-benefits-from-bridge-project
--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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