Two city officials lobby on the Hill
Jenny Marder
City Administrator Ray Silver and Mayor Connie Boardman spent two
days last week lobbying on Capitol Hill for money for unfunded
mandates and city programs.
They met with Assemblyman Dana Rohrabacher, officials from the
Environmental Protection Agency and aides from the offices of Dianne
Fienstein and Barbara Boxer to reinforce what the city’s lobbyists
have been fighting for and to garner federal funding.
Huntington Beach has two lobbyists, one in Sacramento and one in
Washington, D.C., who are pushing for state and federal funding.
“We wanted to hammer the point home and let them know what’s
really important to us,” Silver said. “The purpose [of the trip] was
to show the flag and emphasize that what we’d been told by lobbyists
is where we’re at.”
Huntington Beach is requesting $4.7 million from the federal
government this year, which includes $2 million to reduce pollution
in the Santa Ana River, $1.5 million for a new gun range and $475,000
to finish the Alabama storm drain, Boardman said.
The city is also requesting $169,000 for an emergency operations
center that would consist of a backup power supply and a better radio
communications system, $338,000 for a constructed wetlands treatment
system and $200,000 to replace the Talbert Bridge after the county
widens the flood control channel.
The city received more than $900,000 in federal funds last year,
Boardman said.
“A lot of capitol improvements are funded by state and federal
funds,” Silver said. “That’s how we’ve done about $30 million of
capitol improvement projects.”
Every fall, the City Council meets to decide on topics for
lobbyists to focus on. Water quality and storm drain issues topped
the list of priorities this year as they have in years past.
The city is hoping to receive state and federal dollars to fund a
water quality master plan, the first of its kind, Silver said.
The cost of maintaining water quality has skyrocketed since a
federal mandate passed in 1999 that increased the variety of tests
that are performed at beaches and introduced stricter standards for
posting public health warnings.
Since the passage of Assembly Bill 411, the cost of maintaining
water quality has jumped from $85,000 to more than $700,000, Silver
said.
“We’re very concerned about water quality issues,” Boardman said.
Part of the city’s master plan would involve creating a
constructed wetland that would divert 4-million gallons of urban
runoff daily from the Wintersburg Channel to the Talbert Lake in
Central Park, Boardman said.
Much like the Talbert Marsh, the runoff from the channel would be
naturally treated before being released into the ocean, thus
improving water quality.
“We went back [to D.C.] to emphasize points and see if they had
any questions,” Boardman said. “They appreciated the fact that we
made the effort to go back and make the pitch.”
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