County rallying for border funding
County officials are hoping their lobbying efforts and recent trip to the Capitol where they met legislators will be enough to convince Congress to consider allocating the funding needed for the second phase of the Calexico West Land Port of Entry expansion project.
After being initially omitted from President Donald Trump’s budget proposal released in May, a delegation of county officials — which included county Executive Officer Ralph Cordova, Intergovernmental Relations Director Rebecca Terrazas-Baxter and Supervisors John Renison and Ray Castillo — visited Washington D.C. in mid-June to lobby for the $247 million required for second phase of the port of entry expansion to be allocated in the 2018 budget. Renison said the reason the project was omitted from the 2018 budget was due to the fact that the General Services Administration assumed the project would get funded in 2017 and therefore did not include it in their 2018 budget request to Congress, but told local officials the project remains as one of the GSA’s top priorities.
“It appears they got overconfident about the funding, that they failed to realize they didn’t included it in their request,” Renison said.
“We need to be proactive and fight to the nail to make sure it happens.”
Because the House Finance Committee had already submitted its budget proposal, county officials met with the Senate appropriations in hopes the Senate will include the project in their version of the budget.
“Meetings were helpful and productive, we received a lot of support from our congressional delegation and also from congressional members in the San Diego area and received positive feedback from the Appropriations Committee staff,” Terrazas said during her report of the trip at the Board of Supervisors meeting June 27.
Also during the June 27 meeting, Terrazas said that after speaking with members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the legislators told county staff that it would be helpful to get a written statement from GSA acknowledging that the second phase of the port of entry expansion was not in their budget request, but that it does remain a priority and encouraged the appropriators to fund the project.
“You would think with everything that is going on with national security these items would be in Trump’s budget but it was not included,” Renison said during that meeting. “All hope is not lost, we will continue to lobby we have a plan, we’re well organized, we have the contacts and we do have the support but we just can’t let down.”
Renison said Thursday the county is expecting to find out whether the port of entry expansion project will be funded for the next fiscal year in August at the earliest and September at the latest, as the federal government looks to pass a budget by October.
County staff is currently working with GSA to provide a letter to the appropriators to clarify that, although the project was not included, it remains a top priority to get it funded. Despite the support shown from the legislators in Congress no promises were made.
“This is a priority for everyone that we talked to,” Cordova said during the June 27 meeting. “We got a very positive response, but not absolute commitment.”
Terrazas said the county has explored other avenues that they can take to get the project funded such as including the expansion project in an upcoming infrastructure package from the federal administration.
The expansion project is a priority for local officials who view it as an integral part of future economic development, bolstering security and helping reduce border wait times for pedestrians and commuters. A reduction of wait times at the border could potentially reduce the amount of car emissions in the border area, which has hindered the air quality of the region for many years.
The $247 million, second phase of the project would include a new pedestrian processing facility, administrative offices and add six additional northbound commuter inspection lanes, according to GSA.
Phase two construction would also include the addition of five southbound commuter inspection lanes with canopies and booths, a parking structure and the demolition of the existing main building.
Currently, the first phase of the expansion is underway, and although that expansion itself will provide relief to deal with the vast amount of traffic coming in and out of Mexicali, it would not solve all of the local concerns, Renison said. He also noted that the first phase of the project is scheduled to be completed by mid-2018. If the funding for the next phase is not allocated by then, the contractor would likely move out of the region and not come back until funding is available. If funding for the second phase is delayed, the cost could potentially increase.
Phase one of the expansion will add 10 new northbound inspection lanes and five new southbound inspection lanes, as well as a command center for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, which leases the property from the GSA.
The existing Calexico West Land Port of Entry was built in 1974, and currently is the third-busiest land port in California, with about 4 million northbound vehicles and 4.5 million pedestrian crossings a year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Staff Writer Edwin Delgado can be reached at edelgado@ivpressonline.com