Matching wits with all those available funds

In recent days we have been informed of three more upgrades to Cape Girardeau's historic downtown area, all of which will add to our pride and all of which will be accomplished only if the federal-budget trough is deep enough to accommodate the city's request for matching funds.

Matching funds. This is the glue that holds our nation together. Our legislators in Washington Dee See don't like to pay full freight, but they're more than willing to pay most of the cost of just about anything our U.S. representatives and senators think will contribute to the betterment of the lives of Missourians.

Or guarantee re-election, whichever comes first.

I'm not knocking matching funds. I like matching funds. Everyone ought to adore matching funds.

The best part about matching funds is this: You rarely have to match federal funds with real money. Instead, you get to count the value of "in-kind services." That includes the cost of the time it took to apply for a matching-funds grant, the cost of someone to administer the grant once it's received and the cost of erecting a sign proclaiming that a project is being funded by matching funds. Right there you've got your 20 percent match. See how easy it is?

As proponents of matching funds will tell you, we better grab our fair share, because there's this big pot of money marked "Matching Funds" sitting in this room somewhere in the U.S. Department of the Treasury building in our nation's capital, and there are hundreds of hard-working, decent federal employees dipping buckets into the pot every time someone submits a grant application. That's our money, so we are entitled -- yessiree, obligated -- to scoop up our fair share.

The three projects for which matching funds will be sought are fancy lights for Spanish Street, improvements to storefronts and a river overlook at the end of Morgan Oak Street where the old bridge used to be.

Back in November 2001, I penned my reaction to plans to create a new entrance to downtown from the new bridge incorporating three roundabouts on a four-block stretch of Fountain Street. Proponents suggested this would make a "grand entrance." Here was my reaction to that three-roundabout concept:

"For a few extra dollars, I'll bet Old Town Cape could have come up with another plan, one with an arched entrance at Highway 74 shaped like a paddle wheeler leading to an avenue lined with coconut palm trees and rose hedges along high walls of tri-color murals depicting a settlement of Capaha Indians gathered by the river to greet Marquette and Joliet on their way to found a River Campus for artists who design gilded mirrors and painted horses for giant carousels which dominate every intersection before excited travelers arrive at the official Little Red House Downtown Reception Center operated by volunteer women who drape each visitor with magnolia leis and give anyone from out of town the traditional Cape Girardeau welcome smooch on the forehead along with $10 in bingo chips redeemable at any downtown merchant for a buy-one-get-one-free pass to any nearby all-you-can-eat drive-through buffet decorated year-round with twinkling holiday lights that reflect the fast-flowing current of the mighty Mississippi where a barge is loaded with marimba bands that play Southern Ozark rock favorites from the 1970s."

You know what's frightening about that? Most of it has come true. Thanks, of course, to matching funds.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.