The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a $300,000 grant to help fund a project aimed at developing future jobs on the Central Coast.
The money will go to the Hourglass Project, which is being tasked with developing a “Central Coast Jobs Roadmap and Action Plan.”
The funding was made possible through Senate Bill 1090, which ensured the community will receive $85 million in mitigation funds from Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) to ease the impact of the closure of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant.
PG&E plans to shut down the nuclear power plant near Avila Beach by 2025. The facility employs about 1,500 people and generates nearly $1 billion a year for the local economy.
The creation of the Hourglass Project was announced in November 2018. The organization is a coalition of local business and civic leaders with the goal of fostering high-quality job creation on the Central Coast, focusing on the area from Camp Roberts to Vandenberg Air Force Base.
Work on the Central Coast Jobs Roadmap and Action Plan is expected to take about nine months.
According to the county, the $300,000 is only about 35 percent of the total funding needed for the project. The rest of the money will reportedly come from the private sector.
