Santa Maria Sun / News

Betteravia Center expansion gets county OK

BY JEREMY THOMAS

Despite a worse-than-expected budget forecast, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on Feb. 2 to move forward with a planned expansion of the Betteravia Administration Building.

According to 5th District Supervisor Joe Centeno, “the climate is right” for the project because interest rates and bids for construction projects have never been lower.

“From the day I got here, I was appalled by the conditions our county employees were forced to work in,” he said. “It’s a terrible place to work. I wouldn’t wait to get it fixed. I don’t know if we’ll ever have a better time to do it.”

Centeno said the new building could be used as a North County Emergency Operations Center and as a community meeting place.

Fourth District Supervisor Joni Gray supported the expansion as a way to make user-friendly improvements to the offices of the county clerks, assessors, and recorders.

“It’s just a bad, bad situation for the public,” Gray said. “I think we absolutely have to do something about those departments.”

An increase in the need for upgraded county services in the North County didn’t go unnoticed by 1st District Supervisor Salud Carbajal.

“It’s deplorable that our veterans have to come and be served in a little cubbyhole. It’s like a closet,” he said. “I think building this facility will allow us to have an EOC backup and loosen up space to provide a better functioning office building for a lot of the services we provide.”

Though she voted for the project’s go-ahead, 2nd District Supervisor and board chair Janet Wolf warned that the county needs to be extra careful where it spends its money this year.

The Betteravia Administration Building Expansion project is expected to cost about $5.5 million and could be at least partially funded through Build America Bonds, county officials said.

The project will now move to the county’s auditor-controller’s office and will be ready for the bidding process in three weeks, along with plans for a new county Emergency Operations Center in Santa Barbara and a remodel of Santa Barbara County Courthouse’s Public Defender’s office.

 The board’s decision came shortly after a second quarter budget report by the county executive officer revealed a higher than anticipated $38 million county budget shortfall for the 2010-11 fiscal year.

Of that deficit, $18 million is tied to the general fund and about $20 million comes from liabilities to the state. The CEO said the revised numbers reflected an unexpected $2.5 million drop in county property and sales tax revenues.

“That’s what we’re anticipating,” Supervisor Wolf said of the deficit. “It could be worse, or it could be better.”