Guadalupe Awarded Valuable State Grant Continuing Run of Positive Accomplishments
Dave Alley
GUADALUPE, Calif. (KEYT) – The City of Guadalupe has experienced a recent wave of significant accomplishments over the past several months, including just being awarded an important state grant.
This week, Guadalupe learned it was the only city in either Santa Barbara County or San Luis Obispo that will take part this year in County Community Cleanup & Employment Pathway (CCEP) Grant Program, that is administered by Caltrans as part of the statewide Clean California Initiative.
Guadalupe is set to receive just over $280,000, which the city reports will go towards a number of projects, including litter reduction and improve community appearance improvements.
“Our main focus is going to be kind of a phased approach to target litter and graffiti, weed abatement, along the incoming corridors into the town, said David Trujillo, Guadalupe Interim City Administrator. “So Highway 166 westbound, Highway 1 southbound from the Santa Maria Bridge, and then Highway 1 northbound coming from Orcutt. What our goal is, we want to make the community inviting to people that are coming through, so the people that are passing through, just taking Highway 1 south, we want to make it to where it’s inviting enough to make people want to stop to they want to check it out.”
The grant will also help with the creation of new local jobs through employment pathway opportunities, providing workforce training for individuals facing employment barriers.
“We want to be able to give them as as much quality training and guidance as we can, whether it be just general public works stuff or if it’s landscaping, variable building maintenance, we want to try to give them more of an on the job training versus focusing on hiring somebody that has a skill set already,” said Trujillo. “We want to target people new into the workforce, people who are struggling to keep, or even get jobs, bring them on board, provide them with mentorship, maybe skills that they haven’t even realized that they have and give them a way to move forward, and progress their careers as they move on.”
The grant continues a good run for Guadalupe, which has seen a lot of positive changes taking place within the past year.
Other notable additions or improvements that have taken place or in progress or coming to the city includes the opening of two new schools, the kickoff of long-planned renovations to the historic Royal Theater, the start of construction of Las Mujeres Park, which will include a skateboarding facility, upcoming upgrades to the Guadalupe Senior Center, as well as improvements to the Amtrak train station.