While most states have officials in charge of overseeing funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law, most cities don't. Matthew Garbark is Baltimore's. A former city Public Works official, deputy chief of staff for the mayor and analyst for the state Transportation Department, Garbark is looking to rejuvenate Baltimore through the nearly $8 billion Maryland is guaranteed over the next five years and the dozens of billions of dollars more available in competitive grants. Garbark’s true test will be turning that funding into projects that make a difference in people’s lives — while earning the trust of the community while he’s at it. Already, the city has attracted $6 million from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to go toward improvements at Baltimore’s Penn Station. But Garbark has his sights set on much more as states and cities nationwide look to cash in. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Not many cities appointed an infrastructure coordinator. Why did Baltimore? We have a pretty unique structure in Maryland in terms of local and state government, where Baltimore as our largest city acts as the equivalent of a county as well as a municipality. Most of our infrastructure was actually built before the state itself, which connected from Baltimore out. We also have a unique arrangement with our water and sewer utilities, where the City of Baltimore owns the utilities and sells water to the surrounding counties and jurisdictions. So really it was that unique role which basically set us apart from our neighboring counties, and it was different from the state of Maryland because our stuff tends to be older. There needs to be coordination at a very senior level to bring these back into states of good repair. There was a unique situation for Baltimore that really warranted aligning our different priorities into one avenue. What are some of the infrastructure projects you are most excited about in Baltimore that you are looking to get funded? Our top priority right now is a brand new program that was helped designed by our congressional delegation called reconnecting communities. We have an expressway on the west side of the city that was attempted to connect Interstate 70 all the way through the city to Interstate 83, all the way to the other side of I-95. They built it in segments, and it cut through neighborhoods, predominantly African American neighborhoods, and they never ended up finishing it. Further out west, they ran into issues. So you have this chunk of an expressway that has ripped apart a community. We have applied for a planning grant and are hopeful to come back in a year or so to apply for a construction grant, to address that, to heal that divide. Mayor [Brandon] Scott believes very strongly that this is a prime example of how infrastructure spending has armed communities, especially communities that have been disaffected. This is something we’re really excited about. The opportunity to bring people together is phenomenal. That’s one of our top projects. Another one is broadband. We have a significant digital divide in Baltimore. Our neighborhoods are very starkly contrasted from one another, some neighborhoods having extremely high standards of living and affluence and others having very little and no connections to internet. And that is really harming people with job opportunities and educational access. Our attempt to build out a broadband network is something Mayor Scott is very interested in. How do you navigate the balance over flexibility in the implementation of the bipartisan infrastructure law – the need to respond to states and cities’ unique needs – with the Biden administration looking to implement some sort of national strategy? Maryland has always been a lucky state in its proximity to D.C. We’ve been able to take advantage of a lot of federal opportunities. We have an incredibly large federal workforce in Maryland. Maryland and Baltimore are pretty familiar with the use of federal assistance. This is looking to be more flexible than anything in the past. Some of the matches have been made less onerous, some have been made more flexible. So from our perspective, from what we are used to, the programs we’re looking at, this is an increase in flexibility that allows us to leverage things we previously haven’t been able to leverage.
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