Congressional deal to help fund storm drainage improvements in Santa Maria
SANTA MARIA, Calif. - A storm repair project in Santa Maria will be funded through a Congressional deal secured recently by Rep. Salud Carbajal.
Through Carbajal's efforts, he was able to obtain $13,446,901 to fund 14 Central Coast community projects in a government spending deal advanced by the U.S. House of Representatives.
"It's part of the appropriations process that we just passed a week ago or so that was pretty encompassing for funding half of our government," said Carbajal said during an online interview from Washington, D.C. with News Channel Wednesday morning. "We have another six bills that appropriations bills. That's the second tranche of our budget here in the United States government. Coming up this week, next coming week to fund the rest of our government, but as part of the first tranche, we were able to include what we call community project funding, which includes funding throughout the district for 14 projects that I was able to get funded for a total of $13.5 million."
Seven of the projects that will be funded in the deal are in Santa Barbara County, five are in San Luis Obispo County, and three are located in Ventura County.
As for the Santa Maria project, $959,752 was secured for the construction of storm drainage improvements in the area around North Miller Street and East El Camino Street, which routinely becomes flooded during heavy rain storms.
"We're super excited about the announcement," said Brett Fulgoni, Santa Maria Public Works Director. "We want to thank Salud Carbajal for supporting the City of Santa Maria. There's some drainage projects that we would like to do on Miller. This particular funding will go to a drainage project on North Miller that has been designed for years, but we've never had the funding to do it. We're going to be paving Miller Road and it's important to do the drainage before we pave the road so that we don't have to dig up a brand new road to fix drainage later on."
Fulgoni added once the funding becomes available, it will allow the City of Santa Maria to begin repairs before the start of the next winter storm season.
"The funding is crucial for us to finish that project," said Fulgoni. "We're fully designed on it will be going out a bit shortly with the funding secured. The funding becomes available this year and we look to start construction this fall."
