Santa Barbara County is doing a rush job on an application for a highly competitive $833,000 state grant to develop a mobile farmworker resource center, although one county supervisor would prefer to create one without being tied to the state’s apron strings.
The Board of Supervisors this week voted 4-1, with 5th District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino dissenting, to apply for one of only three of the grants that will be awarded among the 22 counties that could apply for the funds made available through Assembly Bill 941, signed into law in September 2021.
The program divides the state into two regions, and Santa Barbara County is in Region 2 with nine other counties. One grant will be awarded to the top applicant in each region, with the third grant going to the second-best application, regardless of which region it’s from.
The application deadline is Dec. 21, and some counties have been working on their applications since spring.
If the county wins a grant, which requires a $208,250 match, it will be on the hook for forking out an estimated $1.04 million to keep the program operating once the state money runs out by May 2024.
“We’ve all been here long enough to know there’s no free money,” Lavagnino said. “I really think this is a great idea. I just don’t want to partner with the state.
“If we’re going to spend a million dollars a year, we really should figure out how this fits into our overall needs plan,” he continued. “There are going to be some hard decisions made in June about things we’re doing right now that we can’t do in the next fiscal year. … I think being independent from the state will give us much more flexibility.”
Lavagnino favored getting all the stakeholders together to come up with a plan to create the resource center, which the board can consider during the June budget hearings.
Fourth District Supervisor Bob Nelson was also skeptical of the grant application at first.
“I support the concept,” Nelson said. “I’m not sure I support this application.”
But ultimately, he voted with the majority.
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Supervisors also heard from about 19 members of the public, most of whom supported both creating a farmworker resource center and applying for the grant, many of them involved with Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project, or MICOP, and Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy , or CAUSE.
Many of the speakers also told supervisors about their parents being immigrant farmworkers and how, as children, they had to translate sometimes complex documents for them.
Some said at times their parents were taken advantage of due to a lack of knowledge about their rights and where to get help, underscoring the need for a farmworker resource center.
The center would provide farmworkers with resources, referrals and access to help in such areas as labor and employment rights, assistance and advocacy, education, emergency supportive assistance, financial assistance and health and human services needs.
“It’s not unusual to have 20 [public] speakers,” noted 1st District Supervisor Das Williams. “It’s unusual for more than half to have personal family experiences.”
He added that “$800,000 would be significant help in setting up a program.”
The staff initially proposed that the Public Health Department would be the county’s lead and would contract with a community nonprofit to conduct the program.
But supervisors said the Social Services Department would be a better fit and that the county should operate the program with assistance from nonprofit groups.
If the county doesn’t win one of the grants, the staff will pursue pulling stakeholders together to come up with a plan.
The state is scheduled to announce the grant winners Jan. 12, and the resource center must be established and operating by July 15.
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