4 SLO County projects get $8 million in state funding. Here’s where the money will go

Four San Luis Obispo County projects will receive a total of $8 million under California’s new state budget — including efforts to restore a historic veterans hall and conserve massive parcels of land.

On June 30, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the $308 billion state budget for the 2022-23 fiscal year.

“There are lots of things in this budget that will be very helpful to the county and Cal Poly,” said California State Sen. John Laird, who represents District 17.

The budget includes $1 million for “badly needed renovations” at the aging Cayucos Veterans Memorial Building, Laird said in a news release.

According to San Luis Obispo County Supervisor Bruce Gibson, that funding will be a “big help in closing what we’ve recently estimated to be a $4 to $5 million gap in the project funding,”

“We’re continuing to work with Sen. Laird’s office on other sources of increased funding,” Gibson said.

Also included in the state budget is about $1.5 million to help the Cayucos Land Conservancy buy 2,250 acres of coastal land between Cayucos and Morro Bay, creating “a new open space preserve for hiking and other recreation, with low-impact, low-cost camping and trail connection to the beach,” the release said.

“I’m very happy that’s being phased toward acquisition,” Laird said of the Toro Coast Preserve Project.

“We are all very thankful to Senator Laird,” attorney John Carsel, who chairs the Cayucos Advisory Council, wrote via email. “I’m obviously thrilled at the prospect of getting more funding for the reconstruction of the veterans hall and for the land conservancy obtaining much of the former Chevron property. Both are vital projects for the maintenance of small town Cayucos.”

Carsel wrote that the hall “is the heart of Cayucos and much of our integrity is bound up in the greenbelt surrounding our town.”

The budget allocates $2.5 million toward The Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County’s efforts to permanently preserve the Camatta Ranch in Santa Margarita. The circa 1846 ranch, which features 32,000 acres of grassland and oak woodland, is located west of Carizzo Plain.

Laird also helped secure $3 million for the city of Paso Robles “to make Creston Road safer for pedestrians and cyclists, beautify the corridor with streetscape enhancements and improve conditions for transit, motorists and businesses,” the release said.

While some of Creston Road is within Paso Robles city limits, Laird said it carries a lot of traffic that would otherwise travel on state highways, such as Highway 46. That makes the street a state concern, too.

Elsewhere on the Central Coast, Laird helped the Monterey County Water Resources Agency snag about $6.1 million for broken valves at the base of Lake Nacimiento and San Antonio Lake that will allow “managers to access low level water during droughts” when lake water levels are low, he said.

And, as chair of the state senate’s Budget Subcommittee on Education, Laird “played an instrumental role” in securing $20.3 million to close the funding gap for rebuilding Cal Poly’s Swanton Pacific Ranch, the release said. The 3,200-acre ranch in Santa Cruz County that lost several structures due to the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fires.

The California State University system had gotten some money from insurance and disaster funding “but they were still $20 million short,” he explained.

Laird said that rebuilding the wildfire-ravaged university facility was a personal goal.

“It’s 15 miles from where I live, and it really is a great facility,” Laird said.