• On July 9, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that the state would hire 858 more firefighters and six California Conservation Corps (CCC) crews through October, according to a press release from his office. “Even in the midst of a global pandemic, the state of California hasn’t taken its eye off the threat of wildfire,” Newsom said according to the release. “Even in a challenging budget climate, we have undertaken major action and made significant investments to fortify our state and help fight increasingly severe wildfires.” Over the past year and a half, California has also made investments in wildfire prevention, preparedness, and response. “Cal Fire completed the last of its 35 emergency fuels management projects in May, making 90,000 acres safer ahead of wildfire season and protecting 200 vulnerable communities,” the release stated. Cal Fire also recently received more helicopters and airplanes, and the state “won critical safety victories from PG&E to make the utility [company] more accountable to the state and ensure wildfire safety and reliability are top priorities.”
• After the Small Business Administration released new data on Paycheck Protection Program loans, U.S. Representative Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) announced on July 8 that assistance to California’s 24th Congressional District totaled more than $1 billion and helped retain more than 150,000 jobs on the Central Coast. “This data illustrates how federal resources provided by the CARES Act are being used to preserve jobs and provide businesses on the Central Coast with a safety net as we grapple with economic uncertainty caused by COVID-19,” Carbajal said in a press release from his office. “However, this data only represents 15 percent of the total number of loans. We need more complete data, including information on how economically disadvantaged business owners have fared.” The Paycheck Protection Program was established by the CARES Act to provide aid to small businesses and organizations that took a hit from the COVID-19 pandemic. The loan is forgivable if certain criteria are met, such as putting a large percentage of the loan toward maintaining payroll.
• U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) voiced his support for the Great American Outdoors Act in a July 12 Facebook post. The act aims to protect public lands and national parks. “This is an important bill to permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund so our parks and public lands are preserved for the next generation to inherit,” Carbajal wrote in the post. Introduced in the Senate by a bipartisan majority, the act would also address a backlog of maintenance needs at national parks. According to the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) Coalition website, during “this past fiscal year 2020, only $495 million was appropriated to LWCF—far short of full funding, and yet the highest amount in 15 years.” The Great American Outdoors Act would provide the full funding appropriation of $900 million each year for LWCF.
• Gov. Gavin Newsom declared July as “California for All Small Business Month,” according to a July 8 release on the governor’s website. A product of Newsom’s Task Force on Business and Jobs Recovery, the new campaign is encouraging Californians to #ShopSafeShopLocal by helping small businesses in their communities operate safely during the pandemic. The state is partnering with “industry-leading companies, such as Nextdoor, Google, and UPS, to connect California’s small business owners with critical tools and resources,” which can be found on business.ca.gov, “to help them adapt to new consumer and market demands and create safer shopping experiences by improving their online presence,” the release states.
This article appears in Jul 16-23, 2020.