Stimulus to deliver major projects in Southwest Michigan

A recent report from the Kalamazoo Gazette article highlighted the major amounts of money going towards projects in Southwest Michigan. Of the projects, two strike strike me as projects that could be harnessed to aid the local economy: additions to the Kalamazoo County International Airport and Kalamazoo's Metro Transit. From the article:

The Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport is to receive $1.6 million toward construction of a new terminal and $894,000 for a new air-traffic-control tower.

Kalamazoo's Metro Transit will receive $950,000 from the federal spending bill for expanding its Rose Street offices.

These projects are particularly interesting because of the mass amounts of public money going into the projects. Using a community benefits agreement model, it could be very beneficial to leverage for standards that provide local construction and hiring requirements for the construction. Over the next several months, it will be important to monitor the development updates to see if they can be influenced to use local labor to ehance the local economy.