This year, the California Office of Traffic Safety awarded a record $149 million in federal funding through 497 grants to make roads safer across the state.
The grants, awarded annually, fund education and enforcement programs, including several in Tulare County.
Tulare County Prosecutor’s Office
The Tulare County District Attorney’s Office received a $243,213 grant, which it will use to help prosecute driving under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol cases.
The money will fund a vertical prosecution team – which allows a prosecutor to take a case from start to finish – mainly for drunk driving with injury cases.
The grant money will also be used to develop protocols for handling cases through the criminal justice process, provide training to prosecutors and investigators through the statewide Traffic Safety Resource Prosecutor Program, and host quarterly regional meetings with law enforcement partners to Improve DUI investigations and prosecutions.
Under the Vertical Prosecution Program grant for drivers with alcohol and drug disorders for the period 2023-2024, a total of 2,415 DUI cases were filed by the Public Prosecution Service – 2,202 alcohol only, 116 drugs only and 87 combinations of drugs and alcohol. The Vertical DUI Prosecutor has filed 96 cases, focusing on incidents of repeat offenders and DUI resulting in injury or death.
“We are once again grateful to the Office of Traffic Safety for recognizing our office with this important grant,” said District Attorney Tim Ward. “While trends have been moving in the right direction since last year, we have still seen the damaging and life-changing consequences of this entirely preventable crime.”
The California Office of Traffic Safety has awarded a record $149 million in federal funding through 497 grants to make roads safer across the state.
Visalia Police Department
The Visalia Police Department received $200,000 for “police traffic services.”
The department will use the grant money to purchase DUI and traffic enforcement supplies, fund DUI and traffic safety operations and provide training to officers in DUI detection and enforcement, said Liz Jones, department spokeswoman.
“The goal is to reduce traffic fatalities and injuries, reduce the number of alcohol-related collisions, increase drunk driving enforcement efforts and increase public awareness of the dangers of drunk driving,” she said. “Enforcement operations will focus on areas with a disproportionate number of traffic accidents or DUI incidents.”
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Porterville Police Department
The Porterville Police Department received $100,000, also for “police traffic services.”
“We’ve been receiving this grant for probably 10 to 12 years, as have other agencies in Tulare County, I think,” said Porterville Captain Josh Maniss.
He says the department applies for this grant annually because it covers overtime costs related to traffic safety in the city.
“It’s aimed at reducing injury crashes and fatal collisions, bicycle safety and pedestrian safety, and part of it is to get impaired drivers off the streets, and that’s through DUI checkpoints and driving ban enforcement ,” Maniss said.
Tulare County Probation Department
The Tulare County Probation Department received a $147,217 grant, which it will use for “an intensive probation supervision program for high-risk individuals with multiple DUI convictions,” according to a news release.
“This grant funding will allow us to address the complex issues surrounding individuals with multiple DUIs by providing essential resources and guidance to break the cycle of alcohol-related offending,” said Chief Probation Officer Kelly Vernon.
Some of the funding will go toward check-ins with probationers to ensure they are complying with the court-imposed terms of their probation.
California Friday Night Live Partnership
The California Friday Night Live Partnership, housed in the Tulare County Office of Education, received the largest grant in the county, $260,000, to address drunk driving. The Friday Night Lights Partnership engages young people in alcohol and drug prevention activities.
However, most of the money will be distributed to schools across the country.
“As a California Partnership, we receive the money from the California Office of Traffic Safety, and then in turn we create these mini-grant projects that the counties apply for,” said Friday Night Lights Director Nani Dodson. “We give them the training and tools they need to implement it in their local community.”
A majority or significant portion of the grant money will go to the counties to implement a traffic safety and underage drinking prevention project, said Katelyn Williford, grant coordinator for the partnership.
One of those locations is in Exeter, she said, adding that the mini-grants amount to $3,000.
“The Exeter site is running what we call a ‘Positive Social Norms Campaign’, which essentially challenges the narrative that ‘everyone drinks, everyone engages in this behavior’,” she said. “They challenge that narrative by (students) developing digital graphics or other public service announcements, and securing in-kind placement of those PSAs.
“They develop and implement social media campaigns, social media challenges or digital pledges,” Williford said. “It increases community awareness, peer awareness, while building the skills of the youth partners who are spearheading these project efforts.”
A portion of the grant money will go to Friday Night Lights to help cover costs.
“There are dollars in that funding source to support our office and the training we provide to support these projects statewide,” Williford said.
California Highway Patrol
The California Highway Patrol received 25 grants totaling $24,445,242. Tulare County was a beneficiary, but it has yet to be determined how much of the grant money will go to the county.
“Each area is allocated a certain number of hours depending on the grant,” said Gregorio Rodriguez, public information officer for the California Highway Patrol, which is involved in distributing seven of the grants the CHP has received.
CHP grants are used to fund programs, events and enforcement to address distracted driving among teens, improve pedestrian safety and encourage children to drive safely.
“Each area office will receive an office plan of what is expected within their specific area,” Rodriguez said. “The number of presentations, bike rodeos, whatever specifics are in that operations plan for that specific grant, has to be handled on an area-by-area basis.
“It really depends on our numbers,” he said, explaining that if fatalities are high in a particular area, that area will receive more funding.
“If the Northern Division, which is way up north, doesn’t have a problem with car seat fatalities or car seat compliance, they won’t get as much of the state’s allocation,” Rodriguez said. “While we’ve shown here in the past that we do a lot of car seat events, do a lot of installations in our regional offices, we get a little bit more of the allocation for the state.
“It really all depends on the statistics,” he continued. “If there is a need in a certain area, they get a bigger share of the pie.
“I know specifically that Visalia has received a grant that is geared toward drunk driving enforcement,” he said, adding that the additional enforcement will occur along highways 99, 43, 63, 137 and 198.
This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: Tulare County receives several grants from the transportation department
