Santa Barbara County delegation to Washington D.C. returns

A Santa Barbara County delegation has returned from a lobbying trip to Washington D.C. seeking funding from Congressional leaders and federal agencies for local transportation and infrastructure needs.

The annual trip included current Chair of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, 5th District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino, Santa Barbara County Public Works Director Scott McGolpin and Tom Fayram with Santa Barbara County Water Resources and Flood Control District.

The delegation had a busy schedule during its three day visit meeting with Congressional leaders and various federal agencies including the Army Corps of Engineers where it sought continued support and funding for long-term maintenance and improvements to debris basins above Montecito and southern Santa Barbara County.

“They spent over $100 million during the 1/9/18 debris flows to clear out those basins and get us back to square one,” said County Supervisor Steve Lavagnino. “The problem is, that little rain storm we had just last week, we spent half a million dollars cleaning up the debris basins again. And for us, as the county, it’s unsustainable. We can’t continue to do that without any federal assistance.”

“We’re looking at the big fix, so like I said, the Army Corps spent over $100 million here so they’ve got their eyes focused on Montecito and Santa Barbara County”, Lavagnino said. “The relationship the Army Corps of Engineers has with our public works staff, they know each of them on a first name basis, they knew all of the basins by name, I guess after you spend $100 million somewhere you come to realize you better build a relationship. So our staff has got a really strong bond with the Army Corps.”

Another major agenda item on the schedule was getting support and funding from the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation on changes to Lake Cachuma to help save the endangered steelhead trout.

“There’s a biological opinion out about steelhead trout, allowing more water releases for steelhead, and as we raise the water level of the lake, it’s going to come up and take out the wastewater treatment plant there,” Lavagnino said. “That’s a five million dollar project. It’s federally owned, the park is federally owned, so we’re trying to get a buy-in from the Bureau of Reclamation who actually owns it to come up with some money to either move it, build a new one or come up with some other resolution.”

And with an eye on the Trump Administration’s proposed trillion dollar national infrastructure improvement plan, the delegation wanted to throw Santa Barbara County’s hat in the ring early.

“What I hear from people the most is they want that road out in front of their house paved, they want the potholes fixed, and so we’re trying to get a buy-in from congressional leaders and decision-makers is Main Street USA, fix it first, that’s the way to go. That is, don’t worry about the big projects right now. We don’t need anything new, we need to fix what’s already out there,” Lavagnino said. “The only way we can get something like that done is starting early. That’s why we went out there to get that ball rolling. I don’t want to get there next year when this thing is already baked and find out we didn’t get what we wanted, so we kind of have to start laying the ground work early.”

The re-cap of the delegation’s trip to Washington D.C. and the federal funding sought for various projects in the county will be discussed during a full meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors.