Simi Speeds Environmental Document to FEMA

SIMI VALLEY — After a week of frantic scrambling, Simi Valley officials have cleared a major hurdle in their efforts to acquire federal money for construction of the city’s new police station, piecing together in record time an environmental document the government required.

Last week, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials told the city it needed to submit the document before negotiations could continue on FEMA providing funding for the new station. Construction of the station, to be built next to City Hall at Tapo Canyon Road and Alamo Street, had been delayed during the negotiations.

But working with Rep. Elton Gallegly’s office, Simi officials were able to crank out the needed information in just one week. On Thursday morning, FEMA Director James Lee Witt told Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) that the submitted document met the agency’s requirements.

“They told us it had never been done in less than two weeks,” Mayor Greg Stratton said with a chuckle.

Thursday’s action does not mean that FEMA has agreed to turn over the $3.7 million Simi officials want for the new station. But city leaders are so confident that the agency will help fund the project that they told the construction company Thursday to begin work, which could start as early as next week.

“We believe there is money that is allocatable for the new facility, and it will be allocated,” City Manager Mike Sedell said.

Federal money alone won’t cover the cost of building the station, needed to replace the police headquarters that was badly damaged in the Northridge earthquake. But the city wants to use the FEMA money to make early payments on $10 million in bonds issued to pay for construction.

City and agency officials have been haggling over the amount the city should receive to compensate for the quake damage, with the agency at one point claiming the city qualified for only $260,000. But last week, FEMA warned city officials that before they could proceed, the city would need to complete a National Environmental Protection Act review.

Without the review, Simi Valley would not be able to spend any of the agency’s money on the new station.

Stratton said that most of the information needed for the federal document had already been collected as part of California’s mandated environmental review process. City staff worked over the weekend, plugging the needed information into the federal review format, he said. Gallegly also helped win the quick cooperation of other agencies--such as California’s Office of Emergency Services--to complete the review.

Stratton thanked Gallegly on Thursday for taking Simi Valley’s concerns directly to Witt, saying the congressman’s help gave city officials access to the agency’s top man.

“It takes a congressman to do that stuff,” he said.