Legislators push to get funding back for PID

Senator Jim Nielsen and Assemblyman James Gallagher spoke in Paradise today to discuss efforts in holding Governor Newsom accountable for his promises.

District could lose millions of dollars in recovery funds from the state.

Action news now reporter christina vitale spoke with legislators about what it could mean for the rebuilding the town.

Senator: jim nielsen: its going to be a big fight assemblyman james gallagher: it's a state commitment and the state needs to follow through on it and we will hold them to account northern california legislators are fighting for funds that governor newsom wants to claw back from the paradise irrigation district.

Gallagher: the town does not recover without water gallagher says newsom followed through for the first years revenueãbut has slashed the last 7.3 million dollars from his may revised budget.

Nielsen: this is not an issue that we play politics with an he has invested a lot in helping us out and now to cut the rug out from under so we go back to nothing action news now reached out to governor newsoms office.

It says the state has to close on a 54 billion dollar coronavirus budget shortfall.

They said in part quote "more than $13 billion of that shortfall falls in the fiscal year ending six weeks from now&the immediate necessity to close this shortfall is what drove this proposalãnot politics, and not any policy disagreement."

Pid district manager kevin phillips says federal funding helps to fix damages to their systemãbut they were also relying on*thi* money for daily operations.

Lori crowder- lives in paradise: paradise was a very affordable town and we need to keep it that way steve and lori crowder just moved back to paradise and finally have flowing water to their homeã councilman crowder worries this setback might scare people away.

Crowder: if they were on the fence about rebuilding before if there's an idea that they won't have water or it'll be too expensive or what you have you it'll push them the other way and that's not what we need at this point phillips: we've done our part and now what we're asking for is for the governor to do his part reporter tag the next step is for the governor and legislative leaders to negotiate the revised budget.

In paradise christina vitale action new now coverage you can count on.

The governors office also says other projects with unspent funds throughout the state are proposed cuts as well for the full statement visit our website and click under news links.## business are slowing reopening