Auburn officials hoped the $800 billion federal American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009, informally known as the stimulus package, would provide about $5.4 million to resurface the local arterials that connect one of the largest industrial complexes in the Pacific Northwest.

Status — it didn’t score.

Those same officials hoped to see money for badly needed work on the busy West Valley Highway corridor from Fife to Tukwila.

Status — didn’t score.

A to B Street Corridor construction — didn’t score.

OK, so where did Auburn score? Converting all the traffic lights in the city to lower wattage, light emitting diodes or LEDS, and a guard rail safety project.

Frustrated city officials say the scoring process the state and regional committees have set up to determine which projects receive funding is flawed.

And it is leaving many smaller cities out.

“I don’t mind being the remora in the shark’s tank as long as there’s some scraps,” said Auburn Mayor Pete Lewis. “We’re not even getting that. And that’s just the road and transit part of the infrastructure, which is only part of the stimulus package.”

Lewis believes the state is not basing its decisions on project readiness alone, but on political considerations and project size.

Because the state is using existing federal processes, projects will have to be federalized to make it on the list. State officials also have said because of budget cuts, the state can’t do the work and they would have to outsource it. That means each city or organization that wants a project federalized would have to send with its submission an $8,000 check in advance of each project. Smaller cities with limited budgets might be hard pressed to meet this requirement.

“It turns out it’s not how ready are you, it’s ‘how ready are you, plus where is this project located, plus what significance does it have on the region, plus does it connect to regional centers?’ ” Lewis said. “But the only thing you know about is readiness. All of a sudden, projects that might not be able go for a year have vaulted to the head of the line, where projects that could go next month didn’t even score. All the maintenance work for our arterials didn’t score, none of it.

“It’s called stimulus, it’s not called waiting room,” Lewis continued. “Here’s how it should work: give the state a list of projects in order of what can start tomorrow, next week, next month, the month after and it will fund those. That’s the way it should be. If a project can’t start for another two years, OK, there’s money out there, but if it’s not going to start for a year, why not do other projects first that are ready to go?”

Lewis said the state should emphasize fixing what’s already there before building new things.

In the end, it is a state process, said Matt McAlvanah, an aide to U.S. Senator Patty Murray.

“From the federal level, if we talking about most of the infrastructure funding in the bill, it goes to the state, and the state makes the decisions about where to allocate funds,” McAlvanah said. “Our office does not have a role in allocating the money.”

“Look, I recognize our place in the scheme of things, I really do,” Lewis said. “I just need a couple small fish that are important to us. If big fish get caught in that net, and we just get the little ones, I’ll be fine.”

KEEPING SCORE

Top scoring projects on the King County Project Evaluation Committee’s Federal Stimulus Project Scoring Worksheet

• Bothell: $1.9 million to construct a portion of Mission Trail between between Northeast 195th Street and North Creek Parkway, construct pedestrian signals at two locations on North Creek Parkway and construct a 100-foot pedestrian bridge over North Creek.

• Burien: $625,000 to construct a 7.5 foot-wide sidewalk and 5-foot-wide bicycle lane on the east side of 4th Avenue Southwest.

• Seattle: $121 million to widen the South Spokane Street Viaduct.