What a waste of stimulus dollars

I am not one to write editorials or blogs but I have just heard that $400,000 is going to help build or rebuild a couple cabins along the Iditarod trail. What a crock! Talk about waste. This use of the American tax payer dollar will in no way stimulate anything or anyone, well except maybe our friendly folks over at the Iditarod Trail sled dog race.

Who appropriates the money for this project? Who has the final say on how this is spent? I want their head on a stick. The person or people who decided this is acceptable should have to live in those cabins and their homes should be given to the homeless.

There is a claim that cabins will be built in the vallages and local hire would be used. How long will it take to build these cabins and how many people will it take? How much money will be used for material and logistics?

A better use would have been to build more suitable housing in the vallages and used local hire for the construction all the while giving good construction training to village youth so maybe as more money was made available the local population could be put to work building more homes. Or how about energy concerns? The money could have been used to put up wind turbins and solar panels in some villages and the locals could have been trained for this task. Then as other villages get money the already trained could go out and train others. But instead we have a couple cabins being built that only about 2% of Alaska's population will ever use, if that. Maybe when we have another bad winter and the villages have no way to heat their homes they can go tear down the cabins and use the wood for a souce of heat.

Robert DeBerry