The Puget Sound Regional Council determined how some federal stimulus dollars will be allocated amongst regional construction projects at a special meeting Thursday.

The projects in Pierce County receiving funds are a state Route 162 road project in Orting, an extension of Shaw Road in Puyallup, a town center revitalization project in Eatonville and a Port of Tacoma project intended to increase commercial truck traffic.

Representatives from Pierce County cities and towns attended a special meeting of the Pierce County division of the PSRC March 10 to make a final attempt at obtaining stimulus funds before the council made its decision on the distribution of money. Representatives were allowed three minutes to give the presentation and members of the council were allowed to ask questions pertaining to the project afterward.

Bill Pugh, Sumner’s public works director, presented to the Pierce County division of the PSRC about the town’s proposed Traffic and Fryar Avenue signal project, but Sumner was not included in the list of final projects.

At a Sumner study session the night before the Tuesday meeting, Councilmember Matt Richardson, Mayor Dave Enslow and council discussed the hope Sumner would manage to receive some money from the board.

The Port of Tacoma was the source of some strife during the meeting, since the amount sought by the agency was $15.4 million of the $18.6 million available to Pierce County.

At the conclusion of the meeting, the Pierce County division of the council passed a motion to grant funds to projects in Puyallup, Orting and Eatonville and give the Port of Tacoma $400,000 less than it requested.

In order to qualify for stimulus dollars, projects need to receive a score of 90 points through an evaluation process created by the Pierce County Transportation Coordinating Committee (TCC).

City employees were asked to score their own projects according to criteria set by TCC on how effective the projects are in creating jobs and how soon they can begin.

Despite the omission of Sumner’s project on the funding list, Enslow remains optimistic about the project’s future.

“We had one of the very high-ranking projects and we have high hopes it will get funding in the next go-round,” he said.

He said Sumner is supportive of the other projects, including the Port of Tacoma’s, saying the project is important to the region.

According to the port’s public affairs manager, Tara Mattina, the project will create approximately 228 short-term jobs in construction and another 1,535 long-term jobs in port activities.

“We already talked to some economists to determine the economic effects,” she said.

Enslow said the meeting on Tuesday established cooperation between regional agencies. “Out of this came some really good understandings,” he said.

While presenting for the Port of Tacoma, Port Commissioner Dick Marzano said his agency understood the magnitude of the funds being sought and said the port would support other cities’ and towns’ projects in the future.

Enslow said he believes this will be the case as other projects go forward.

“I see a spirit of cooperation with the port and with the county,” Enslow said.