( - promoted by Rocky Mountain Right - )

The Obama Administration has put up a web site, recovery.gov, to show Colorado citizens what they did with the money spent in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. A walk down memory lane will show that our President claimed that passage of the Recovery Act was essential to keep unemployment down to the 8% range. Currently, the unemployment rate is 9.8% in spite of spending these billions to create jobs. Considering that Mr. Obama flew out and signed this multi-billion dollar legislation in our own state, one may wonder what happened to this landslide of job creation.

Among the more interesting local winners of this Obama Lottery are:

* The Douglas County School District got $9,850,000 for special education projects.

* The towns of Castle Rock and Parker got $174,800 and $172,400 respectively to change out street light bulbs to LED lights.

* Douglas County got $81,921 to help out 40 low income individuals.

* The Sedalia Water & Sanitation District got $215,625 to fix water pipes and to help poor people buy homes.

* Hedley Mendel Management Co. LLC got $60,000 for low income housing assistance and still managed to "save or create" 3 jobs with this paltry sum.

All told $85,998,492 went to Douglas County government units or private companies. A total of 654 jobs were "created or saved"  in Douglas County, CO for a grand total of $131,548 for each of these great jobs. The itemized list is below:

1. Town of Parker, CO - $172,400 for lightbulb replacement. -0 jobs
2. AES Group Inc. - $96,952 for boiler replacement at a VA hospital -6 jobs
3. Town of Parker, CO - $27,082 for bar coding equipment -0- jobs
4. Teletech Government Solutions LLC - $28,387,503 for the digital TV changeover -635 jobs
5. CH2M-Hill - $7,000,000 to redo Centennial A/P Taxiway -0 jobs
6. CDOT - $333,489 for ramp metering -0.91 jobs
7. CDOT - $31,465,783 to fix C-470/I-25 - 35.78 jobs
8. C&L Water Solutions - $1,424,031 for water utilities at Denver Fed Ctr.
9. Zimcor LLC - $204,300 for water utilities at Denver Fed Ctr.
10. CDOT - $6,384,813 for highway infrastructure - 3.05 jobs
11. Douglas County Government - $119,160 for victims assistance to crime victims -0 jobs
12. Douglas County Government - $81,921 to help out 40 low income individuals - 0 jobs
13. Douglas County School District - $9,850,633 for special ed. = 0 jobs
14. Sedalia Water & San. District - $215,625 for water infrastructure/ home ownership - 0 jobs
15. Town of Castle Rock, CO - $174,800 for street light changeout - 0 jobs
16. Hedley Mendel Management Co. LLC - $60,000 for low income housing assistance - 3 jobs

At this rate we will quite a few more stimulus bills to take up the employment slack.

MIke Robinson is Senior Partner at Robinson & Henry P.C., a Castle Rock, CO Law Firm.