CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The city of Clearlake has received a new grant that will help it move forward with cleaning up blighted properties.

In August of 2017, the city of Clearlake applied for a Solid Waste Disposal and Codisposal Site Cleanup Grant in the amount of $214,030 to clean up multiple sites throughout the city, according to City Manager Greg Folsom.

Folsom said CalRecycle offers grant funds to cities to help clean up blighted properties where the responsible party is unwilling or unable to clean up.

Once the blighted property has been cleaned up, a lien is placed on the property for the cost of the clean-up and CalRecycle is reimbursed out of the sale proceeds, he said.

Unfortunately, Folsom said that before CalRecycle was able to award the 2017 grants the North Bay Wildfires of Oct. 9 hit and CalRecycle personnel were assigned to assist with recovery efforts.

However, Folsom said the city of Clearlake received notification last week that CalRecycle recently awarded the city $214,030 in grant funds to be used for abating up to 18 properties within the city limits.

“This is a great program that we have used in the past to remediate blighted properties and we put a lot of effort into last year’s application so we are very excited to be notified that we were awarded the full amount requested in our application,” said Folsom. “These funds will go a long way toward helping achieve our goal of making Clearlake a cleaner city.”