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• Del Norte's CDFA Grant Application

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The possibility of winning nearly $8 million in California Department of Food and Agriculture grant money was too good an opportunity to pass up, Del Norte’s assistant county administrative officer told supervisors Tuesday.

The CDFA grant aims to create community resiliency centers to enable residents to weather climate change, wildfires, flooding and other emergencies, Assistant CAO Randy Hooper told supervisors.

If its application is successful, Del Norte County will use those dollars for improvements to the Veterans Memorial Hall and its gymnasium near the Flynn Center. Those improvements include heating and cooling system upgrades, adding an air filtration system, creating a shelter area for the public and installing lockers as well as solar panels. There will also be some ADA improvements, which are “long overdue,” Hooper said.

“There is no local match,” he said. “It goes straight into the improvements we need to do.”

Other improvements include a backup power generator, a new roof on the Veterans Hall, space for the Del Norte County Office of Emergency Services and an Emergency Operations Center as well as HVAC upgrades for a warming and cooling center.

Food distribution capacity, community kitchen improvements and sound system upgrades are also planned, according to the county’s staff report.

Hooper said the county became aware of the grant opportunity through Rural County Representatives of California. Representatives for that statewide organization said the grant was under subscribed, which means the program had more funding available than applicants pursuing those dollars, Hooper said.

“It presented a unique opportunity to get pretty serious and proactive on something we know we need here because we do have these issues,” he said. “Other communities want to establish heating and cooling centers or smoke retreat areas from wildfire smoke. Even as we experienced over the winter with cold temperatures, having to mobilize on the fly an emergency shelter at the fairgrounds. We’re looking more critically at some of the infrastructure we have at the county.”

RCRC representatives also said they’d have a staff member available to help counties pursue CDFA Community Resiliency Center Program dollars.

District 2 Supervisor Valerie Starkey, who chaired Tuesday’s meeting due to her colleague Darrin Short’s absence, asked Hooper to describe the level of outreach the county will do “when we get funded.”

“These are all really great opportunities and perfect solutions for the things we need,” she said. “But I don’t want to see veterans get displaced out of their building. I understand it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen, but I would want them to be part of the process and that communication.”


The county already has letters of support from organizations such as the Family Resource Center of the Redwoods, CASA as well as Assemblyman Jim Wood, State Sen. Mike McGuire and Congressman Jared Huffman.

“The idea with getting letters of support and community buy-in was an allusion that as we get into this process it’s going to be very collaborative,” he said. “All the stakeholders and partners and players will be involved and obviously the public. I envisioned public workshops to put together a public vision for what we want to have in these facilities.”

Del Norte County resident Sam Strait was skeptical, asking how the county would maintain a major grant-funded infrastructure project.
Strait pointed out that Crescent City is pursuing a $3 million grant for more funding connected with the Beachfront Park expansion. He also brought up a previous conversation during the meeting about a projected deficit in the county-owned portion of the sewer collection system.

“Is there any consideration in this particular project for maintenance down the road? I think there is not,” Strait said. “Sometimes it’s not a bad thing not to pursue grant funding when it is going to burden the community down the road for substantial amounts of money.”

Both Starkey and Hooper said they felt the county was in a good position to obtain that $8 million grant.

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