Testosterone Replacement Therapy in Lamont, CA

Thursday marked the grand opening of Mountain View Village, the first affordable housing complex in Lamont in the last decade, officials said. Within two weeks, tenants will begin moving into the 40-unit apartment complex at 11316 Main St. in Lamont, and it couldn’t come soon enough, residents say.

“The buzz has been around town,” said Jose Gonzalez, the president of the Lamont Chamber of Commerce. “I get comments every day, ‘When is that going to open?’”

Community groups, including the Comite Progreso de Lamont, the Lamont Boys and Girls Club and Building Healthy Communities, had been pushing for the project ultimately developed by Kern County’s Housing Authority. Those groups and other community members weren’t able to come to the event because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We miss them today because they’re the reason that we’re here,” Stephen Pelz, executive director of Kern County’s Housing Authority. “They provided the inspiration and provided a lot of input.”

Pelz pointed to two ongoing crises that have made having a home to call their own even more crucial for families: the coronavirus pandemic and the poor air quality wrought by wildfires. But he said many Kern County families can’t afford a basic apartment, so they end up living in overcrowded homes, substandard housing or paying more than 50 percent of their income in rent, putting them at risk of homelessness.

“Mountain View Village will change that narrative in Lamont for 40 families,” Pelz said. “This is providing quality housing for affordable rent at hundreds of dollars less than they would get on the private market.”

The two-bedroom units will rent out to Lamont residents for $398 to $667 per month, depending on their income. To qualify, a family must make less than 50 percent of the median income for the area; in Lamont for a family of four that number would be $34,950.

Electric bills are expected to be extremely low — $5 to $10 per month per tenant on average — thanks in large part to solar panels on the roofs of the two-story buildings but also the “zero net energy” units themselves built with energy efficiency in mind.

Each apartment comes equipped with a refrigerator, stove, dishwasher and microwave. The floors are made of a vinyl plank wood. Communal areas include laundry facilities, 21 bike storage lockers, a picnic area and a playground. There are also two community rooms where people can gather or where services can be offered to residents. The units and parking lot are gated and secured, and there will be an on-site manager.

Trying to get the project financed was a struggle, said Thomas Lingo, of Americana Community Development, who worked with the county to develop the project. He said anything involving affordable housing in California has been tough since redevelopment agencies were snuffed out by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2011. Mountain View took stringing together funding from a variety of sources, especially competitive grant funding that took a few rounds of applications.

The project was funded by Kern County’s HOME program, Pacific Western Bank and PNC Real Estate. But one of the key grants was from the state’s Strategic Growth Council. It hinged on the sustainability of the project — not just the vaunted “zero net energy” units themselves but the transportation infrastructure residents will rely on.

Parking spots are not just for residents’ cars but the state’s CalVans program. Residents and those who live nearby can carpool together to local employers, like Grimmway Farms, Tejon Outlets and Bolthouse. There are bike lockers, and also plans to help residents with bike repairs on site and offer periodic bike rodeos to teach residents about safety, Pelz said.

The infrastructure will extend beyond the units, too. There will be a new bus stop out front for Kern Transit, and residents will be receiving discounts on bus passes.

And though they haven’t been completed, the county will be building new bike lanes and sidewalks that extend for miles beyond Mountain View, so residents can ride their bikes or walk to school or into town. Pelz says the timeline for completing those is early 2021.

Gonzalez says these are all good signs for Lamont residents, who often feel like they have to fight for basic needs in their community. Many houses are bursting at the seams, with several families piling in just to have an affordable place. Many of them are agricultural workers who make little and want to live close to their employers. The community has been demanding more, and they’re starting to feel like leaders are listening.

“This is a glimmer of hope that investment is coming to Lamont,” Gonzalez said.

So far half of the units have been rented out, but the others are still available, Pelz said. People interested in applying can call 846-2117 or email alemus@kernha.org. You can visit the Kern Housing Authority website at https://kernha.org.

Thursday marked the grand opening of Mountain View Village, the first affordable housing complex in Lamont in the last decade, officials said. Within two weeks, tenants will begin moving into the 40-unit apartment complex at 11316 Main St. in Lamont, and it couldn’t come soon enough, residents say.

“The buzz has been around town,” said Jose Gonzalez, the president of the Lamont Chamber of Commerce. “I get comments every day, ‘When is that going to open?’”

Community groups, including the Comite Progreso de Lamont, the Lamont Boys and Girls Club and Building Healthy Communities, had been pushing for the project ultimately developed by Kern County’s Housing Authority. Those groups and other community members weren’t able to come to the event because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We miss them today because they’re the reason that we’re here,” Stephen Pelz, executive director of Kern County’s Housing Authority. “They provided the inspiration and provided a lot of input.”

Pelz pointed to two ongoing crises that have made having a home to call their own even more crucial for families: the coronavirus pandemic and the poor air quality wrought by wildfires. But he said many Kern County families can’t afford a basic apartment, so they end up living in overcrowded homes, substandard housing or paying more than 50 percent of their income in rent, putting them at risk of homelessness.

“Mountain View Village will change that narrative in Lamont for 40 families,” Pelz said. “This is providing quality housing for affordable rent at hundreds of dollars less than they would get on the private market.”

The two-bedroom units will rent out to Lamont residents for $398 to $667 per month, depending on their income. To qualify, a family must make less than 50 percent of the median income for the area; in Lamont for a family of four that number would be $34,950.

Electric bills are expected to be extremely low — $5 to $10 per month per tenant on average — thanks in large part to solar panels on the roofs of the two-story buildings but also the “zero net energy” units themselves built with energy efficiency in mind.

Each apartment comes equipped with a refrigerator, stove, dishwasher and microwave. The floors are made of a vinyl plank wood. Communal areas include laundry facilities, 21 bike storage lockers, a picnic area and a playground. There are also two community rooms where people can gather or where services can be offered to residents. The units and parking lot are gated and secured, and there will be an on-site manager.

Trying to get the project financed was a struggle, said Thomas Lingo, of Americana Community Development, who worked with the county to develop the project. He said anything involving affordable housing in California has been tough since redevelopment agencies were snuffed out by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2011. Mountain View took stringing together funding from a variety of sources, especially competitive grant funding that took a few rounds of applications.

The project was funded by Kern County’s HOME program, Pacific Western Bank and PNC Real Estate. But one of the key grants was from the state’s Strategic Growth Council. It hinged on the sustainability of the project — not just the vaunted “zero net energy” units themselves but the transportation infrastructure residents will rely on.

Parking spots are not just for residents’ cars but the state’s CalVans program. Residents and those who live nearby can carpool together to local employers, like Grimmway Farms, Tejon Outlets and Bolthouse. There are bike lockers, and also plans to help residents with bike repairs on site and offer periodic bike rodeos to teach residents about safety, Pelz said.

The infrastructure will extend beyond the units, too. There will be a new bus stop out front for Kern Transit, and residents will be receiving discounts on bus passes.

And though they haven’t been completed, the county will be building new bike lanes and sidewalks that extend for miles beyond Mountain View, so residents can ride their bikes or walk to school or into town. Pelz says the timeline for completing those is early 2021.

Gonzalez says these are all good signs for Lamont residents, who often feel like they have to fight for basic needs in their community. Many houses are bursting at the seams, with several families piling in just to have an affordable place. Many of them are agricultural workers who make little and want to live close to their employers. The community has been demanding more, and they’re starting to feel like leaders are listening.

“This is a glimmer of hope that investment is coming to Lamont,” Gonzalez said.

So far half of the units have been rented out, but the others are still available, Pelz said. People interested in applying can call 846-2117 or email alemus@kernha.org. You can visit the Kern Housing Authority website at https://kernha.org.

Project will consolidate systems of two severely disadvantaged communities

By Dimitri Stanich, California Water Boards

In Kern County today, the State Water Resources Control Board joined Lamont Public Utility District and elected representatives to celebrate a $25.4 million grant the utility is receiving from the board’s Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience (SAFER) drinking water program – which has to date invested over $65 million in the county since 2019. The grant announced today will allow the consolidation of the historically failing water systems serving Lamont and El Adobe Property Owners’ Association to create a new, upgraded system that will supply safe and affordable water to over 20,000 residents.

“This is the result of many years of hard work—coordinating separate authorities and overcoming many challenges to craft a feasible solution that will provide safe and affordable drinking water,” said Nichole Morgan, member of the State Water Board. “But through the sheer determination, cooperation and goodwill of all involved, Lamont PUD now has a sound plan and the means to build a drinking water system that will serve this community for generations to come.”

The project includes drilling three new drinking water wells, the destruction of three 45-year-old wells—that exceeded the state Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCL) for arsenic and 1,2,3-trichloropropane— and the construction of a new water distribution system for El Adobe, which currently has elevated levels of arsenic. El Adobe will be connected to Lamont PUD through the installation of a 10-inch transmission main and water meters.

“For us, this is monumental. We have never received assistance of this magnitude in our 80-year existence,” said Scott Taylor, general manager of Lamont PUD. “The grant helps us make critical repairs and upgrades to our system so that we can reliably provide safe and affordable drinking water for our customers and El Adobe as well. Both Lamont and El Adobe are severely disadvantaged communities and our customers are mostly agricultural workers. This never would have been possible without the board’s funding and technical support through the SAFER program.”

In Kern County, where Lamont is located, 14 other projects consolidating more than 50 systems, including two schools, are currently being developed through SAFER. Since it was launched in July 2019, the program has invested over $65 million in the county for a variety of drinking water projects that will ultimately benefit 212,000 people. Statewide, 95 consolidations have been completed, providing 78,000 people with safe drinking water.

SAFER uses a set of tools, funding sources and regulatory authorities designed to ensure Californians who currently lack safe and affordable drinking water receive it as quickly as possible. Funding provided through the program is drawn from various drinking water funding sources. The grant awarded for this project is comprised of funding for drinking water infrastructure authorized in the 2021-22 state budget and Proposition 68.

Lamont PUD anticipates it will begin construction this summer.

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LAMONT, Calif. (KERO) — The California Water Resources Control Board has made a grant available to the City of Lamont to make improvements to the city's water supply. The $25 million dollar grant will facilitate the construction of three replacement wells and a new water treatment system.

The current water wells are 70 years old and starting to fail, leading residents to rely on bottled water. Board president for the Lamont Public Utility District Timteo Prado has lived in Lamont all his life and says the issue of safe, clean drinking water is personal.

"I personally live here. My mom lives here. I have 2 siblings that own houses who live here, and I have several family members who live here, and I think that guarantees the importance of what this means for the community, I think, beyond the measure," said Prado.

Prado has been a longtime advocate for safe, affordable drinking water in Lamont, even speaking with state politicians about the issue. He says the improvements to how water is supplied to area residents won't just benefit Lamont, but also El Adobe, a smaller district that serves 81 parcels of land.

Scott Taylor, general manager for the Lamont Public Utiltiy District, describes what the funding will actually cover.

"An entire three well-sites from start to finish, from raw ground, dirt to the end product," said Taylor.

Taylor says the water issues do not come from nitrate or arsenic, problems, but from trichloropropane, also known as TCP. Taylors says that's where the new water treatment facility will come in.

"So those TCP concerns and any other constituents will be resolved through grant funding with the addition of water treatment," said Taylor.

This project is not new to the community. These latest additions are Phase 2 of an ongoing project. California Water Resources Control Board Chard Joaquin Esquivel says Phase 1 was providing $5 million dollars for an emergency replacement well. That well took roughly nine months to complete.

Esquivel says although Lamont's water is currently meeting standards, their goal is to secure safe water for future generations.

"We're concerned that we're gonna have a lot more challenges with our water systems, so these investments, the ability to get ahead, is gonna be really important to ensure what we call in California 'the human right to water,'" said Esquivel.

LPUD says the water they've drawn from test wells has been coming back clean. They say Phase 2 will begin sometime next year, and they expect to complete this phase within the next 3 years.

California's top air-quality officials signed off last week on a plan, developed with the help of Arvin- and Lamont-area residents over the course of 16 months, for cleaning up some of the dirtiest air in the United States.

The California Air Resources Board gave its approval to a 148-page set of ideas, such as increasing enforcement of existing regulations, changing how some pesticides are applied locally, planting shrubs as a way of keeping wind from kicking up dirt and offering financial incentives for purchasing cleaner landscaping and other equipment.

The next step is for locals, including the more than 50 residents who helped refine the plan, to come together and prioritize which measures should be implemented first, at least in cases where CARB would need to approve specific grant programs to carry out the community's wishes.

Some measures are already in motion, like enhanced enforcement and partnering with local government agencies on ways to cut emissions and reduce exposure to fine particulates, volatile organic compounds, pesticides and nitrogen oxides.

The plan was mandated by the state Legislature with passage of 2017's Assembly Bill 617 requiring community-focused action to cut air pollution in communities disproportionately impacted by air pollution. The Arvin-Lamont area was one of 17 communities, and one of four in the Central Valley, selected to participate.

"We must ensure that the people in the communities that produce our food can breathe clean air where they live, work and play," CARB's executive officer of environmental justice, Chanell Fletcher, said in a news release.

A committee set up to hash out the changes met monthly between March 21 and Aug. 22. Their plan was approved in June by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District.

The approved plan was not without skeptics. Although the Kern County Farm Bureau did not respond to a request for comment on CARB's approval, President Patty Poire previously told The Californian the group wanted more focus on cutting emissions from mobile sources through measures like reduced vehicle idling and synchronization of traffic lights.

She said talk of changing pesticide processes, which included deeper injection of chemicals and limiting application of some materials to immediately after irrigation, should be saved for ongoing rule-making at the state level.

Besides local use of pesticides, the Arvin-Lamont area was singled out because it suffers from pollution from industrial sources, ag operations, oil production, dust and heavy-duty truck traffic.

Thirty-one measures were included in the final list of proposals CARB approved. One proposal was for helping small and medium-size farming operations to buy new equipment, such as low-dust nut harvesting equipment. Another proposal is to issue grants allowing apartment communities to buy an electric or hybrid vehicle to be shared by residents. Another idea was to work with state oil regulators to assess the impacts of oil wells on the local community.

Byanka Santoyo, a resident who participated in the planning process, said she saw local interest grow in the committee's actions, which to her suggested residents wanted change.

"That shows that residents were very interested and very outspoken," Santoyo said. "They became leaders in the community."

The regional air district's director of community strategies and resources, Jessica Olsen, said the committee will meet next week to outline outreach strategies, followed by a meeting in early December in which residents will be invited to help prioritize incentive measures.