November 26, 2024
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
City Secures Grant Funding for Upcoming Projects
OAK HARBOR, WA - The City was notified on Friday, November 22 that it had been awarded just over $430,000 in two grants, one for a Street Improvement project and one for a Facilities Improvement project.
The first, a Transportation Improvement Board Arterial Pavement Preservation grant for $348,136, provides 80 percent of the funding necessary to repave Southwest Swantown Street. The project includes removing two inches of current pavement and replacing it with a new overlay of pavement for the full-width of the road from Heller Street to Fort Nugent Avenue; approximately 1,775 linear feet. The project will also replace traffic loops and substandard ADA ramps, restripe the road with two travel lanes, a center left-turn lane, and add buffered bike lanes on each side. The new Fire Station 82 is being built along this stretch of road. The reconfiguration of the road to add a center turn lane will improve safety when fire engines and other emergency vehicles are entering the road from the station. This project will be coordinated with the construction company that builds the new fire station to ensure water and sewer connections are completed prior to the pavement project being started.
The Transportation Improvement Board is an independent state agency, created by the legislature, and funded through three cents of the statewide gas tax. The Board funds high priority transportation projects in communities throughout the state to enhance the movement of people, goods and services. The agency awarded 179 projects, over $145 million in funding, in this grant cycle. The City of Oak Harbor received a Transportation Improvement Board grant in 2023 which funded the pavement portion of the West Whidbey Avenue project last summer and a 2024 grant which is funding the pavement portion of the NE 7th Avenue project, currently underway. This new 2025 grant brings the total amount of State grant funding from the Transportation Improvement Board for street projects in Oak Harbor to $1.25 million dollars.
The second grant from the State of Washington Department of Commerce Office of Firearm Safety and Violence Prevention provides 100 percent of the funding necessary to reconfigure the Police Department to increase secure storage for relinquished firearms and upgrade pass-through evidence lockers. The project will extend physical security, install access controls, alarms, monitoring and cameras. The $83,000 project period runs through September 2026, but the Police Department expects to complete the reconfiguration and upgrades in 2025.
Commerce’s Office of Firearm Safety and Violence Prevention focuses on programs designed to reduce firearm violence, enhance public safety and improve social and health outcomes within communities across Washington. The Office received $1 million from the U.S. Department of Justice Byrne State Crisis Intervention Program to support efforts to improve implementation of state laws that can result in firearm relinquishment order by a court, either temporarily or permanently. Oak Harbor Police Department was one of three cities to receive the grant and one of only six awards overall.
Press Contact
Magi Aguilar
Communications Officer
City of Oak Harbor
maguilar@oakharbor.org