Sacramento Bee: Biden signs $1.5 trillion spending bill into law. What does it mean for the Sacramento area?

More crosswalks near Sacramento schools. Help for the police in Elk Grove. Improvements to the Fair Oaks community clubhouse. And more. The $1.5 trillion federal spending bill President Joe Biden signed into law Tuesday gets very specific about projects in the Sacramento area that will get some of that money.

Such projects, submitted by local members of Congress, used to be called “earmarks,” and were often criticized as wasteful pork. They’ve since been rebranded as “community project funding.”

There are an estimated 4,000 such projects funded. Unlike past years, guidelines were stricter: No for-profit interests could get funding, members could seek a maximum of 10 projects and had to certify that neither they nor immediate family members had any financial interest in the project.

The projects pushed by Reps. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, and Ami Bera, D-Sacramento, address education, infrastructure and other community needs.

MORE MONEY FOR FLOOD CONTROL

The bill includes $157 million for an existing project in the Natomas Basin, and $17.9 for a new construction start in West Sacramento, both spearheaded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Natomas Basin is “one of the most at-risk areas in the nation for catastrophic flooding,” according to the federal project’s webpage. Severe storms in 1997 and 2006 exposed “serious underseepage” in the basin.

Local and federal agencies have set out to improve the entire 42-mile ring of levees around the basin. The Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency completed the first 18 miles of improvements, with federal projects in progress on the remaining 24.

Levee improvements in the basin will clear the way for home construction, as the project area begins to shift from already-developed to largely undeveloped land.

Sacramento River flood risk has held back development of new homes on the acres west of Interstate 80 and El Centro Road, and south of San Juan Road. Contractors are expected to begin levee construction on a key 3.5-mile stretch near that area by this June, according to federal planning documents from January.

Across the Sacramento River in West Sacramento, flood risk is also substantial. The city is split roughly in half by the Deep Water Ship Channel: half north of it and half south of it.

Almost the entire perimeter of West Sacramento is bound by levees to the Sacramento River, bypassess and the ship channel.

The new levee improvement project has been in the planning stage since July 2014. The $17.9 million in the spending bill will unlock its first phase, centered on the Yolo Bypass East Levee, a small segment in the city’s northwest corner.

The full project — bolstering the levees around the entire city – is a projected $1 billion undertaking.

As with Natomas, the levee improvements will be necessary before building many homes in West Sacramento - particularly the area just west of the Sacramento River and south of the ship channel, where the Army Corps of Engineers is proposing construction of an additional “setback” levee.

But that would come later. The next phase in the blockbuster project, after the Yolo Bypass East Levee, would improve the Sacramento River North Levee, which protects thousands of existing homes in the burgeoning city.

MORE MONEY FOR SACRAMENTO

Here are highlights of Matsui’s community projects:

• School safety. $2.2 million for the City of Sacramento’s Vision Zero School Safety. Among the funds’ uses will be installation of crosswalks, curb ramps, new signs, and similar features to improve safety for the students and neighborhood residents.
• Sewer systems. $1 million for Sacramento’s Combined Sewer System Improvement Project. The money will be used to install about 3,000 linear feet of larger sized pipes, 21 to 36 inches in diameter, between 21st Street to 25th Street and W Street to U Street. The city will also install an overflow storage facility for storm water and wastewater. Another $1.5 million will go to alleviate the wastewater overflow problem in the area around 24th Street and K Street.
• Early childhood education. $1.12 million will be available for the construction of the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency’s Mirasol Village Early Childhood Education Center. The center will make it possible for parents to attend school, and to secure employment in the rapidly growing Sacramento economy.
• Job training. $2 million will be available to help train people in underserved areas for careers in technology and other fields.
• West Sacramento trail. $1.8 million will be used to pave 5.6 miles of bike path improvements on a part of the newly built Southport Setback Levee along the Sacramento River in West Sacramento.
• University of California, Davis. $1.7 million for the school’s Digital health Equity Program. A new regional digital public health platform is aimed at improving and continuing care for vulnerable populations in the Sacramento area and elsewhere.
• California State University, Sacramento. $575,000 to buy state-of-the-art equipment to support a new power engineering laboratory, helping to teach electric power generation, transmission, distribution, and protection to meet workforce demands. The school will also receive $250,000 for a Cybersecurity Education Security Operations Center. The money will help buy equipment for a classroom of 25 students, which would include control stations with computers, video units, servers, software and wall units.

MORE SPENDING IN THE SUBURBS

Bera’s projects were largely in the Sacramento suburbs, including Citrus Heights, Elk Grove, Fair Oaks, Folsom, and Rancho Cordova. Among the projects:

• Elk Grove police. $520,000 to help upgrade and integrate a system that will allow the city to bolster community services by expanding relevant partnerships with other organizations, agencies, and professionals outside of law enforcement. The upgrade would permit some 911 calls related to mental health and homelessness to non-profit interests instead of law enforcement.
• Rancho Cordova Youth Center. $350,000 to help with start-up costs and staffing, computer lab equipment, art supplies, books, and sports equipment. Programming will be developed and overseen through a partnership with the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Sacramento and the City of Rancho Cordova.
• Help for young adults with autism. $1 million to help prepare and place young adults with autism for internships with local businesses. The money would help Meristem, the project sponsor, expand the program into a year-round paid internship model, increase the level of training and increase the number of internship opportunities.
• Fair Oaks community clubhouse. $560,929 would go to renovate the clubhouse, notably for new accessible ramps for the main entrance and a new lift for the facilities stage.
• Housing aid. $275,000 will be available to finish renovations and improvements to project sponsor WEAVE’s permanent supportive housing units in Sacramento. The program helps survivors of domestic violence. Also on Bera’s list: $585,000 for planning, design and engineering for a new Citrus Heights Water District groundwater well, $75,000 for a study to examine potential options for a backup system for raw water supplies from Folsom Lake, and $320,000 to finish an undeveloped trail along Tillotson Parkway in Sacramento.

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