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SANTA PAULA —  Santa Paula Counting On Its Own Center If county officials decide to scrap plans to build a new regional government complex here to help resolve their current financial crisis, it won’t sit well with community leaders.

Officials in this farming town sometimes feel their community is treated like the county’s neglected stepchild, and the proposed government complex has been seen as a sign Santa Paula was finally getting the attention it deserves.

“I think the entire Santa Clara Valley sometimes tends to be forgotten,” Santa Paula Councilwoman Laura Flores Espinosa said. “I’m hoping this is still a priority.”

The proposed four-acre complex would house everything from college classrooms to offices for tax collection and public assistance. Those services are now housed in leased buildings and cramped trailers scattered throughout the city.

County supervisors had planned this year to set aside $5 million for preliminary planning and purchase of a site for the complex.

But even before plans began to take shape, the $15.3-million payment to settle the federal Medicare fraud case against the county has jeopardized the project. The payment will sap the county’s reserves, potentially hurting its bond rating and making it harder to borrow money to build new projects.

Supervisor Kathy Long, whose district includes Santa Paula and who proposed the idea for the complex, said despite the problems she will push the county to buy the land, even if construction has to wait.

She and her colleagues are expected to decide on how to proceed when they meet in October for an annual evaluation of planned construction projects. But things could get ugly, Long acknowledges. “The board is going to have to look frankly at all pots of money.”

In the meantime, Santa Paula’s leaders have been thinking about the project’s potential benefits.

The complex could provide one central location for a local branch of CalWORKS and classes through the community college district. It could also offer one center for job training, public assistance and county clinic and mental health programs. The county tax collector and building safety division, which now have no presence in the Santa Clara Valley, also could open branch offices in the complex.

The county now spends $439,000 a year to rent office space, much of it outdated, throughout Santa Paula. Sick people sometimes have to visit three locations for diagnosis, counseling and treatment. On a broader level, offering financial assistance, health care and college courses under one roof could make it easier for the working poor to build better futures.

Some business leaders believe the new complex would be good for the economy.

Jim Garfield, a real estate broker who also serves as Santa Paula’s mayor, said the complex might encourage commercial development downtown, which has been stagnating for two decades.

It would probably spur short-term employment of construction workers, which could help lower the 7.1% unemployment rate in this majority Latino city, where agriculture remains the dominant industry. And depending on its location, the complex could draw employees and those visiting the government center into downtown Santa Paula to shop at local stores.

Santa Paula leaders said last week they are still hopeful the complex will be built within a few years. But if the county has to put all new construction projects on hold, local leaders say they are willing to wait like everyone else.

In general, though, skeptical residents are not getting too excited, Medicare problems or not.

They point out the county’s last two area projects were a jail and the Toland landfill expansion.

“They’ve given us the dump and the prison,” said Madeline Burlesson, a longtime Santa Paula resident and administrative assistant for the local Chamber of Commerce.

“Neither one of those are exactly ‘Come see what we’ve got,’ ” added her boss, Carol Mailloux.

Mailloux said if nothing else, moving forward with a convenient, attractive complex might restore residents’ faith in government.

“I think symbolically it might be a way for the county to say, ‘We do know you’re there and we understand your needs.’ ”