Some projects raise question: Where's the stimulus?

Still, the sewer work is "certainly a project that we would have had to complete one way or another," said Nicole Clegg, director of communications for Portland.

Then there are projects that create work, but seem to fit no long-range plan.

Oklahoma officials were stunned to see the $1.1-million guardrail project offered up by the Army Corps of Engineers as a candidate for stimulus money. With so many other pressing needs, spending money in a desolate area showing no signs of a comeback is indefensible, they said.

"They're not mowing the weeds, which are 2 or 3 feet tall," said Ted Graham, city manager in nearby Guymon, Okla. "They quit maintaining the lake in the park, so it would be a frustration if they spend a million dollars on a guardrail they don't maintain currently."

A spokesman for the corps said that repairing the guardrail with stimulus money was one of several options under consideration. "The guardrail is deficient, broken and needs repairs," said Ross Adkins, spokesman for the corps' Tulsa district.

He conceded that the guardrail is within an area that "has pretty much been abandoned."

"There's no water there, no recreation to speak of. There's nothing there to attract people," Adkins said.

Coburn and the state's other U.S. senator, Republican James M. Inhofe, sent a letter to the corps earlier this month objecting to the project.

Given the "serious infrastructure concerns around the nation," they wrote, "it is difficult to comprehend the decision by your agency."

Americans may be wondering the same thing, on a broader scale.

A Rasmussen poll last week showed that only 39% believed that stimulus spending would help the economy, compared with 44% who said it wouldn't.

The poll also showed that 45% of respondents believed the stimulus program should be canceled, compared with 36% who wanted to keep it going.

--

peter.nicholas@latimes.com