Fun and infrastructure typically don’t end up in the same sentence, but they did Wednesday during a Santa Maria forum.

EconAlliance held a Cross-Industry Infrastructure Forum at the Santa Maria Elks Lodge, where more than 60 attended the luncheon event. 

Infrastructure — a clunky term for basics such as roads, sidewalks and utilities — remains vital but also challenging amid financial shortages and other hurdles that lead to creative solutions. 

That can include doing chip seal projects instead of an asphalt overlay for road maintenance to cut costs significantly, or it might involve paving traffic lanes but not parking areas to trim expenses.

“We’re trying to leverage dollars to get maximum impact,” Santa Maria Public Works Director Brett Fulgoni said. “There’s a lot of fun stuff out there — different ways we’re trying to approach this problem We cannot solve it with dollars alone. We have to be creative with it.”

He also shared about planned interchange projects at Highway 101 and Broadway on the northern edge of the city, along with Highway 101 and Betteravia Road.

However, an interchange at Highway 101 and McCoy Lane may be paused as the city looks where future growth might occur and what other improvements might be necessary to accommodate those areas.

Fulgoni participated in a panel discussion, moderated by Claire Wineman from the Grower-Shipper Association of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties, that included officials from Vandenberg Space Force Base, the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments and the Tri-County Broadband Consortium Pacific Coast.

A need for additional housing remains a challenge, several speakers said. 

Vandenberg’s 999 single-family homes fulfill only 51% of what’s needed for the military members, with the other 49% seeking residences in nearby communities, according to Tom Stevens, executive director of Space Launch Delta 30 at Vandenberg.

Base leaders are continuing to explore innovative solutions to the housing dilemma. 

“If anyone has any ideas, I’m all ears,” Stevens said.

The base expects to get $600 million for projects over the next four years as Vandenberg looks toward needing upgrades for the harbor where rockets arrive via ship and are reloaded.

Vandenberg’s leaders have worked with local, state and federal governments, academia and regional nonprofit organizations.

“We’re more optimistic than ever before about navigating that road to the spaceport of the future,” Stevens said, adding that they continue to need community support as they look toward completing projects.

Other topics during the forum included updates on the Santa Maria Public Airport and Santa Maria Valley Railroad before a second panel discussion with leaders from the agriculture, manufacturing and utility industries.

In addition to touting new American Airlines passenger air service starting Oct. 15 to offer round-trip flights to Phoenix, the airport’s general manager, Martin Pehl, noted plans to explore relocating the U.S. Forest Service air tanker base to a different spot on the airfield.

The tanker base relocation would better accommodate the behemoth planes during air retardant reloading.

That facility’s importance extends far beyond Santa Maria, helping battle huge fires in the southwest.

“These aircraft have a huge reach,” Pehl added.

Fulgoni reminded those in the audience that most residents outside the forum don’t understand the jurisdictional differences when it comes to infrastructure.

For instance, something as simple as a pothole could fall under a city, county, state or another agency’s responsibility. 

“They want good infrastructure. I think we need to make sure that we work together and that we work in a way that is beneficial to the community as a whole,” Fulgoni said.