City of Calexico approved to use funds from frozen state grant for Fire Station No. 2  

CALEXICO, Calif. (KYMA, KECY) - The City of Calexico is now able to use $611,736 from state funding that was originally supposed to be used for Fire Station No. 2.

The fire station has been long awaiting for new repairs due to the serious condition of the inside of the building making it unsafe for the firefighters to work in. 

The frozen funds come from the Community Development Block Grant funds which were originally meant to be used as a relief fund during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Only a small portion of the funding was used to thaw out the $7 million frozen funds.  

Those funds were frozen due to mismanagement and multiple failed attempts by past city management to comply with grant requirements and regulations.  

Such as a lack of maintaining financial records, lack of loan portfolio management, and inaccurate program income reporting, according to the Department of Housing and Community Development. 

“Fortunately now with the new leadership with our new city manager they worked hard to de-freeze these funds as of right now they’ve only been able to defreeze a small portion of them because it is around 7 million dollars so this is only a small portion around 7 hundred I believe its $611,000 that were unfrozen and we’re dedicating those to rehabilitate part of the Fire Station Number 2,” said Council Member Gilberto Manzanarez.

Currently, the building itself is currently not in use and is expected to be demolished and rebuilt.

Upcoming dates of the new fire station building will be announced at the next city council meeting.