Funding for veterans, The Gateway transportation center in Port Angeles and for restoration of salmon habitat is included in the final version of the 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act, Sen. Patty Murray said Wednesday.
The final version of the $446.8 billion discretionary omnibus spending bill came out of a conference committee between the Senate and the House earlier this week and is expected to pass both bodies shortly before being sent to the president for his signature, said the Democratic senator from Freeland, who is a senior member of the Appropriations Committee.
Veteran housing
The bill includes $487,000 for new transitional housing facility for homeless veterans in Forks.
The money would go toward buying and remodeling a two-story apartment building into Sarge’s Place, which would provide transitional and permanent supportive housing community for 12 homeless veterans and their families.
“This is an important boost to Clallam County’s efforts to get homeless veterans into stable housing,” Murray said in a prepared statement.
“With new service members returning home every day and the economy sputtering, we must step up our efforts to provide all veterans with housing and the dignity that comes with it.”
No transitional or supportive housing units for veterans exist on the West End, even though it has the highest concentration of homeless veterans in the county, Murray said.
“We at Sarge’s believe that service to our country can cause wounds and suffering that last beyond the length of duty,” said Cheri Fleck, president of North Olympia Regional Housing Network.
“Our mission . . . is to heal the wounds, to restore dignity, hope and self-sufficiency to all veterans in need, and to significantly reduce veteran homelessness on the west end of Clallam and Jefferson counties.”
The project would provide up to 10 construction jobs in the community, she added.
The Gateway
The bill also included $550,000 for The Gateway transportation center.
City Manager Kent Myers said last week that the city had applied for about $500,000 from the federal government to cover costs of the project.
The facility — which includes a pavilion, 174 parking spaces, a transit lane, clock tower, break room for bus drivers, office for the Port Angeles downtown resource police officer, public restrooms and a yet-to-be-open ticket center — was completed in June.
Final cost unknown
The final costs of the center, estimated to cost $14.7 million, may not be known until spring, say city of Port Angeles and Clallam Transit officials, who remain in negotiations with Primo Construction, which built the facility, and Krei Architecture, which designed it, over who is responsible for picking up the tab for additional costs associated with a structural problem that delayed its completion.
It had been expected to open in November 2008, but completion was delayed by disagreements among the city, Clallam Transit and Krei over how to fix a foundation wall in which large cracks radiated from underneath a horizontal support beam.
The structural issue was fixed, but the costs associated with it remain the subject of the continuing negotiations.
Clallam Transit General Manager Terry Weed estimated that those costs could be as high as $650,000.
To date the project has cost $15.36 million, according to the city. About $8.1 million came from state and federal grants, $500,000 from Clallam Transit and about $6.76 million from the city.
Water, salmon
The bill also contains $1.6 million for the Northwest Straits Marine Conservation Initiative and $80 million for the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund.
The conservation initiative uses “citizen stewards” to create projects to deal with protection and restoration of marine water, habitats and species at specific sites along the Northwest Straits, which run through Clallam, Jefferson, Island, San Juan, Skagit, Snohomish and Whatcom counties.
Since it was created in 1998, seven Marine Resource Committees were created and it has 112 members, said Ginny Broadhurst, director of the initiative.
Part of the solution
“The Northwest Straits Initiative was created out of concern for dwindling marine resources and damaged habitats in the Northwest Straits region,” she said.
“Our structure recognizes that local residents can and should be part of the solution to protect and restore the marine environment.”
The funding for the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund would be used to support state, local and tribal programs that help improve salmon habitats and restore salmon populations, Murray said.
Funding for the program was restored after it was eliminated in the House of Representatives’ version of the spending bill.
In Washington state, the program works through the Salmon Recovery Funding Board, which has provided more than 900 grants to projects since 2000.
Generates jobs
It also generates jobs, Murray said, adding that every dollar of federal funding has resulted in two dollars being leveraged in local communities.
In May of this year, Murray and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Mountlake Terrace, were among a bipartisan group of senators and representatives who fought for the program after the Obama administration proposed eliminating it.
“It is so important that we maintain healthy fish populations to support both our environment and economy,” said Gov. Chris Gregoire.
“This funding will not only protect salmon habitat and restore fish populations, it protects critical employment opportunities for hundreds of Washingtonians.”