Obama unveils budget, signs stimulus bill

In February, President Obama unveiled a $3.55 trillion budget for Fiscal Year 2010, beginning on October 1, 2009. In his remarks, he called the budget “an honest accounting” of costs being racked up that for too long had remained hidden off the books.

The previous week, Obama signed a far-reaching $787 billion federal stimulus package intended to help jolt the American economy out of its most serious downturn since the Great Depression. The compromise measure is officially titled the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Read the full legislative text here; see the White House ARRA page for full background, including state-specific details, tables and fact sheets on the 407-page package.

County budget officials are still analyzing the potential net county impact of the budget actions, but Supervisor Yaroslavsky cited the following Third District projects as special priorities for federal stimulus package funding:

• Tujunga Wash Restoration – Add an additional ¾ mile to the existing mile-long stream course alongside Tujunga wash, offering environmental enhancement, water-quality improvement and recreational opportunities in the right-of-way adjacent to the County’s Tujunga Wash Flood Control Channel

• L.A. River Headwaters – Transform a flood control maintenance road into a greenway with native landscaping and a walking trail, and plant rain gardens to capture, treat and recharge storm water runoff

• Strathern Pit Multi-Use Project – Capture and use wetlands to treat storm water runoff in 2.2. sq. mi. of the Sun Valley Watershed on a 46-acre site incorporating open space, habitat and recreation purposes, and recharge the underground aquifer beneath the Sun Valley Park recharge basins