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Medford re-hires Smith to lobby for financing By MELISSA MARTIN Mail Tribune The city has re-hired former Congressman Bob Smith to lobby Washington, D.C., for more federal money on Medford's behalf. The City Council recently approved a $72,000 contract with Smith West Co., a Medford government relations firm headed by Smith, who served 14 years in Washington, two decades in the Oregon Legislature and on the Bush administration's transition team. "We're hoping to get money coming to Medford from congressional appropriations earmarked for a specific purpose in a specific community," said Medford City Manager Michael Dyal. City Council members will give Smith a wish list again like they did last year. The list includes several projects left over from last year, including $2 million to develop a sports park off Highway 99 near the old drive-in movie theater; $2.44 million to build a new downtown road called Evergreen Street and $2.6 million to upgrade Main Street's railroad crossing. City officials also want funding for improvements to the Santo Community Center, a new system to cool treated wastewater before it's returned to the Rogue River, and building more youth baseball fields on Alba Drive and a bridge connecting the sports complex to Bear Creek Park. Three new projects on this year's list include a new building for the police department, a neighborhood revitalization program in the Beatty-Manzanita street area and $5 million to $7 million to extend Garfield Street from Peach Street to Kings Highway. The city's $72,000 contract last year with Smith West Co. yielded $385,000 in an appropriations bill to update the city's sanitary sewer master plan last November. The bill, passed by both houses of Congress and signed by President George W. Bush, included money earmarked for Medford. Smith's office also helped the city with a $198,000 grant it hopes to receive within the next month for electronic equipment for police report writing, Dyal said. "When we learned that we failed to sign one of 60 pages in the grant application, we called Smith West and they got it to the right person in the right place," Dyal said. This is the third year the city has contracted with a lobbyist. In 2000, the city hired Sagamore and Associates in Indiana. Sagamore secured $214,000 to help pay for street work on Central Avenue near the Craterian and Rogue Community College, as well as $100,000 for an Army Corps of Engineers study that will enable the city to apply for higher levels of funding for storm water projects. "If Congress is going to earmark money, we want to be there and see if we can obtain money to meet the priority needs of the city," Dyal said. Reach reporter Melissa Martin at 776-4497, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.