Kudos to the Clarksville Town Council!

From this morning's C-J:

I'm proud of the Clarksville Town Council who decided to go ahead with renovations to Eastern Blvd. immediately by using local funds-- rather than delaying the work to wait for federal funds.
The estimated cost of the improvements is $5.1 million. Federal assistance could have been more than $3.2 million but would have taken at least 2.5 years to obtain (good luck with that!).

Why is this the right call?

Ethically, why should a local project be financed with federal dollars? In other words, why should money be taken from people in Walla Walla to pay for street improvements in Clarksville?

Practically, as some of the Council members noted, it could be disastrous to wait that long for the pork to come there way. Eastern Blvd. has deteriorated over the last decade; another three years of the status quo would not be kind to it.