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Dealing with government agencies can be frustrating, but the bureaucracies can move fast when they want to.

To see federal, state and city governments get their acts together to start funneling funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to local communities to use immediately has been just short of amazing.

Although Liberty represents just one small cog in the stimulus machinery, the city has gotten almost $2 million in federal funds in the past few weeks for infrastructure improvements that were supposed to be shovel-ready in 90 days.

Whether it is getting its fair share of federal stimulus dollars, we don’t know. But what we do know is that Liberty is spending the money quickly and wisely and, more importantly, under the watchful eye of just about everyone in town.

Just a few months ago, staff from the public works department announced that it had some shovel-ready projects that would qualify when President Obama announced he wanted to stimulate the economy and create jobs.

The projects the city had in mind were rehabilitation of the city’s aging sanitary sewer system and improvements to major roadways that carry a heavy traffic load.

Within the past couple of weeks, Kansas Street from Missouri Highway 291 to Fairview Avenue and the intersections of Lightburne Street and Bowles Drive along Mill Street have been overlaid, improved and striped. For those road projects, the city’s stimulus share of $4.7 million doled out to the Kansas City area was $378,000.

While it’s true some of the city’s streets are still in deplorable condition, the feds would allow the money to be used only on arterial roads. That makes sense. Kansas and Mill streets carry most of the traffic through Liberty daily and impact the most people.

Hopefully, by using the federal funds to improve those roads, it will free up local dollars to improve roads in other areas of town that have long been neglected.

Recently task forces appointed by Mayor Greg Canuteson identified $170 million in infrastructure needs. While that price tag seems daunting, the stimulus money has made a dent.

The city is going to be able to spend nearly $3 million on badly needed sanitary sewer system upgrades starting within the next month. Stimulus funds are providing $1.47 million, matched by an equal amount from the city, allowing the city to invest more money in sewer improvements than it had been able to do in years.

These are not just make-work projects. Some of the city’s clay sewer pipes are more than 100 years old. They are cracked and broken, allowing ground water and storm water to infiltrate, and they need to be replaced or improved. When they fail, and they will as was evident on Water Street a few months ago, the city has no choice but to fix the problem even if it has to borrow the money.

Upgrading the sewer system could pay off in the long run, especially since Kansas City treats Liberty’s wastewater. The less water that infiltrates the system, the less there is to treat and pay for.

Meanwhile, Kansas City’s monumental sewer problems are keeping Liberty officials on edge not knowing when the bill is going to arrive in the mail. Fixing local sewer lines should help cushion the blow.

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