Securing Outside Funding Opportunities

By Bob Ooten

My goal is to continue to improve Costa Mesa Sanitary District (CMSD) operations and fiscal position through working with other agencies and securing grants.

Working with other agencies provides can be a source of lowered costs for CMSD residents. A project that will provide $12,000,000 in benefits to CMSD resulted from my previous position as the Director of Operations and Maintenance for the regional Orange County Sanitation District (OCSD). As a CMSD board member, I remembered an OCSD project that had been delayed. It would have built a regional sewer line and eliminated eight local sewage pump stations, six of which belong to CMSD. CMSD has now begun working with OCSD to plan and carry out building a regional sewer line which will give CMSD $12,000,000 of benefits.

These benefits come from the abandonment of six of the twenty CMSD pump stations. CMSD will save costly capital upgrades and the future operation and maintenance costs for energy, chemicals, repairs, cleaning, and ongoing preventative maintenance costs. These costs and manpower can be productively spent on other duties and needs. Although CMSD has some costs in connecting to the new regional OCSD sewer, these costs can be covered with existing sewer fees.

Securing grants is another funding opportunity. A grant program was developed at OC Recycle while I served on the Trash Commission. Because I knew of that opportunity, CMSD has acquired several hundred thousand dollars in grants from OC Recycle. One grant goes to provide school children and adults with educational materials on the benefits of recycling, reducing and reusing to decrease the trash discards going to the landfill. Another grant has provided money for the initial compost units for residents and for schools which teach recycling.

My sewer/trash background has proven beneficial in securing funding opportunities that have and will mitigate sewer and trash service fees over the next few years. My goal is to continue seeking those opportunities through working with other agencies and seeking grants.

CMSD 2010 Re-Election Securing Outside Funding