Top 10 of 2022: #1: Federal COVID Aid to City Boosts High Profile Capital Projects

The quantity of federal aid given to the city as part of the federal pandemic relief, and how it was spent, may have seemed mundane news in the moment, but its impact in terms of local projects ⁠— and politics ⁠— has been profound.

In 2022, Republican politicians attributed federal spending in the form of pandemic relief to families and communities from President Joe Biden (D) and Congressional Democrats as the cause of the large spike in inflation. Yet this did not stop Mayor Erin Stewart and others in the GOP from spending that money and taking political credit for having done so despite uniformly opposing the federal help from Washington.

This included a major overhaul of Osgood Park that, unlike parks in wealthier parts of the city, had not been getting a lot of attention from local tax dollars. In announcements and press coverage throughout the year in the corporate-owned press, the source of all the funds was rarely if ever noted.

Then there is the question of whether the money was spent in ways that would have helped people the most in dealing with public health and COVID-induced joblessness. The federal government allowed local governments wide discretion as to how the federal pandemic relief could be spent. It could have been spent, for example, on direct aid to families, organizations and businesses most negatively impacted by the pandemic economic crisis. It would be hard to spend over $50 million in the community without having some positive impact ⁠— which appears to be the very intent of the federal aid package ⁠— but the difference between what was done and what could have been done were local decisions that leave a legacy that will live on.

As in every year, there was so much news that the New Britain Progressive covered in 2022 that choosing our traditional Top Ten stories of the year is difficult. But the federal COVID aid and how it was applied and not applied is one of the most consequential of the year as Republicans here and elsewhere hypocritically took credit for federal relief from the Biden administration and Democratic Congress. For those reasons it should be recorded for New Britain’s history. And that makes this the #1 of the New Britain Progressive‘s Top Ten Stories of 2022.