Grover Beach celebrates streetscape groundbreaking, federal funding for public safety upgrades

GROVER BEACH, Calif. – Monday is a big day for the City of Grover Beach as it celebrates a pair of significant events for the community.

During a groundbreaking ceremony held along West Grand Avenue, city leaders commemorated the start of an anticipated streetscape improvement project that will soon transform the busy downtown roadway.

"It'll be rebuilding the streets, improving the sidewalks. street furniture, so people can meander, sit down, and continue on shopping or visiting the restaurants and other small businesses," said Mayor Karen Bright. "We expect that it will bring more vibrancy to our downtown area. There will be, medians to, slow down the traffic. That has been a concern of many of our residents. as well as decorative crosswalks and just make it a more appealing place to visit and live."

In addition, Congressman Salud Carbajal formally presented Grover Beach with a ceremonial check for $543,000, representing the amount of federal funding he recently secured that will allow the city to purchase several public safety technology upgrades.

"I'm very happy and proud that we were able to do that from the federal government," said Carbajal. "This is part of $13.5 million that are being invested in the Central Coast this year for a total of 14 projects, and to date, in the past three years, I'm happy to report that I've been able to bring $53 million and 37 projects throughout the entire Central Coast."

With the funding, the police department will purchase new in-car video recorders, public safety cameras, license plate readers and multi-band radios.

"We're big fans of, good technology here in Grover Beach that helps us keep our community safe and improve our workflows," said Commander Jim Munro, who is set to become Police Chief on July 1. "Our goal here in Grover Beach is to enhance quality of life, and we know because we've had this technology in place for quite some time, that expanding upon it is going to allow us to keep Grover Beach a safe place to to be, to visit and to live."

While Monday marked the official groundbreaking for the streetscape project, construction is slated to begin in a few weeks in early May.

Completion is expected sometime in December, weather permitting.

During the groundbreaking ceremony, a small group of protesters disrupted the proceeding, interrupting Carbajal while he spoke.

The group was on hand to protest on the ongoing conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine and wanted Carbajal to speak publicly about the involvement of the United States.

Carbajal did not speak about the subject while at the podium, but did talk personally with the group after the conclusion of the ceremony.