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In an effort to secure more funds to protect the region’s lands and waters, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors unanimously signed on April 14 a letter of support to join Monterey and Santa Cruz counties in a regional conservation entity.
The Monterey Bay Area Stewardship Authority, if created, would raise and allocate public and private funds for natural and working lands across the three counties.
State Assemblymember Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz) is pushing the bill that would create the authority, which is still being considered in the California Assembly. The next hearing is scheduled for April 22 at the state Capitol.
Though it could still be amended as it moves through the Assembly, the authority as currently proposed would be made up of nine members—three representing each county: one supervisor, one city council member, and a member of the public, Pellerin’s Chief of Staff Tomasa Dueñas told the San Benito supervisors.
All supervisors agreed this new entity would be a good means of bringing new funds to the county.
“Being such a small community, it does make it especially hard sometimes to advocate for funding,” Supervisor Kollin Kosmicki said. “This approach from a regional perspective definitely makes sense. Protecting this particular region should be a very important priority for the state.”
Supervisor Angela Curro said the authority could help fund projects the county has planned but lacks money for, including Riverview Regional Park, Veterans Park and the cleanup of the San Benito River.
The bill has been in the works for about a year and involved more than 25 organizations from the three counties, including the local Green Foothills and San Benito Resource Conservation District.
Pellerin’s approach, Dueñas said, was to build the legislation “from the bottom up” rather than “Sacramento down.”
The national conservation nonprofit Trust for Public Land has also been supporting Pellerin’s team in developing the authority.
Trust for Public Land consultant Donna Meyer said counties across California can access conservation grants to fund land acquisition and projects, but these grants leave no money for long-term maintenance and management. The authority aims to fill that gap, she said.
Trust for Public Land Senior Program Manager Moisés Moreno-Rivera said the multicounty model has proved successful elsewhere. He pointed to the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority, which has brought together nine Bay Area counties for nearly 20 years and in that time secured more than $100 million in federal and state funds.
“The vision here is to create a unique authority that can bring in dollars to this region that tends to be overlooked by the needs of the San Francisco Bay Area or even Southern California and Los Angeles,” Dueñas said.
Green Foothills Policy and Advocacy Associate Manager Jessica Wohlander told the board the authority would bring huge benefits for the community. “Long-term stewardship and protection of these lands is essential for the resilience and health of our county, environmentally, economically, and on an individual level for our residents,” she said.
The resource conservation district’s Executive Director Karminder Brown told the supervisors that the bill would relieve local ranchers and farmers who, she said, are burdened financially by tasks such as habitat restoration, invasive weed management and wildfire mitigation strategies.
“Our ranchers and farmers already steward their lands in ways that provide benefits to all of us,” Brown said. “What’s really lacking is the sustained funding to both implement new projects and to sustain them over time.”
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