The Hercules pork story brought on a somewhat contrite press release and letter to the editor from the City, followed-up by a report in the Eye…

ANNALS OF PORK, PART II
By Tom Lochner

Hercules officials took umbrage at recent editorials in the national press deriding as “pork” a list of “Ready-to-Go” infrastructure projects in 427 cities, submitted to Congress by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. In a letter to the Times, Mayor Joe Eddy McDonald said The Eye took Hercules’ list of 45 projects worth $152 million “completely out of context” by equating it with “Writing to Santa.”

“The purpose of the list was to demonstrate the magnitude of the projects and the potential jobs that could be created in the near term,” McDonald wrote.

Hercules’ list would create 5,489 jobs — that’s meat, not gravy.

The controversy started when a Wall Street Journal columnist singled out Hercules for posting a $2.5 million duck pond park and $200,000 dog park. Why those two projects, among 11,391 nationwide, got the Journal’s goat is unclear; they appear downright humble compared with, say, Anaheim fishing for $220 million to expand a convention center — or for that matter, Hercules’ $39 million Sycamore Main Street project.

Jeff Wisniewski, who runs the Hercules-based Web site waterfrontwatch.org, said officials are being defensive.

“All construction projects are pork,” Wisniewski said. “Repaving I-80 from Vallejo to Fairfield was pork. … The Bay Bridge replacement is pork.”

The list is still open, and can be viewed at www.usmayors.org/mainstreeteconomicrecovery/stimulussurveyparticipants.asp.

The second-half of my quote regarding the Bay Bridge replacement (which was not included) was that Governor Schwarzenegger wanted a causeway (instead of the cable-stayed bridge design). That idea was eventually thrown-out when the politicos in the Bay Area raised ire and peddled influence.