From local water treatment to improving the Child & Family Center, Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita, made the rounds Friday reveling in the kind of goodwill that $82.4 million to date in community project funding can create.
That was the total Garcia announced Tuesday during his town hall at College of the Canyons, in terms of money he’s helped secure for the SCV.
In the last round of government appropriations, Garcia managed to get $2.3 million for the largest local resource helping families, which offers help with issues surrounding problems like domestic violence, mental health concerns and substance abuse.
“They are earmarks, we can call them what they are,” Garcia said, discussing the application process for the funding at the center on Friday. “And the way this all came about was, effectively, we have community outreach forums where we teach nonprofit organizations in our local community what earmarks are, how to qualify for and how to apply for them, and the Child & Family Center did a great job of explaining what they do.”
Nikki Buckstead, CEO of the center, said the funding will help with roof repairs and the more than two dozen air conditioning units that need replacement in the center’s facilities — meaning the money will go a long way to helping the center fulfill its mission.
The center owns the buildings it operates in, so there’s no landlord to talk to when leaks develop in the roof during the heavy rainstorms last winter or when the AC begins blowing hot air in triple-digit heat, she said.
“We provide a very safe space for our families and clients to come to, and that’s just going to add on to it,” she said. “The other thing that was really important to us and to the infrastructure bill itself was making sure that we’re utilizing local businesses to do the work.
“And you know, it’s a little bit of money, so it’ll help boost the economy and give businesses some great projects to be working on with us,” she said.
She praised the help she received from Garcia’s office, including the heads-up on the available funding from Tami Stephens, Garcia’s field representative, and the staff’s help through the process.
Shortly after that gathering off Centre Pointe Parkway, Garcia headed over to the Valley Center Wells Water Treatment Facility between Golden Valley and Soledad Canyon roads, where SCV Water officials were there to say, “thank you.”
Garcia helped them with $300,000 for creek restoration, which is part of an ongoing project to help address water that’s flooding the roads in the area, and another $2.1 million to restore several wells that have been taken offline due to contamination by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, according to the release.
There is another $3 million that Garcia is seeking for the coming fiscal year’s budget as well.
Kevin Strauss, spokesman for SCV Water, said the federal money represents a big cost savings to the ratepayer.
The funding is part of millions of dollars the agency is seeking to help remove groundwater contamination.
The agency is also seeking to recover the costs of removing the so-called “forever chemicals” from businesses legally liable for the local pollution, including the former owners of the Whittaker-Bermite property and 3M, a multi-national consumer goods manufacturer.
