What separates San Luis Obispo County from Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Benito, and Santa Barbara counties is that electricity users in those counties receive (or will soon receive) an annual 3 percent savings on their bills, some $4.4 million last year, and we don’t.
These counties, along with 23 cities (including every city in SLO County except for Atascadero), have adopted community choice energy (CCE)—a program that provides carbon-free power at a lower cost. CCE also allows for local control of both our energy production and our regional economy. This is significant because now is the time to plan for a post-Diablo Canyon Power Plant future.
As CCE expands, annual savings may reach as high as 8 percent, which could save SLO County residents and businesses more than $8.3 million every year.
With savings this substantial, one would expect our county’s elected leaders, who claim to be fiscally responsible, to eagerly put millions of dollars back into the pockets of local ratepayers. Yet for years, the SLO County Board of Supervisors, led by current board Chair Debbie Arnold, have refused to adopt CCE. Just recently, board members voted against even discussing it.
To me, this is pretty simple. This well-vetted program would save ratepayers money at a time of high housing costs and living expenses. It’s already expensive enough to do business here.
A program that has achieved bipartisan support in other counties should be at the top of our board’s agenda. Instead, rigid ideology and an insistence on bad government seems to be winning the day. This comes at the expense of our community and its future. It’s shameful.
The benefits of CCE aren’t limited to savings. The program is also economically and environmentally responsible. One of the key elements of community choice energy is the investment into local energy projects that would benefit SLO County by creating new jobs that would bolster our regional economy.
Just last month, the Atascadero City Council voted against joining every other city in SLO County in adopting CCE, as was highlighted in a recent New Times commentary (“They’d rather not discuss it,” July 25). City leaders cited the fact that the county had not joined as a justification for holding off. While this is a poor rationale for preventing Atascadero residents from benefiting from the program, it highlights yet another reason why our Board of Supervisors should take action and adopt community choice energy this year.
Unfortunately, our county is on the verge of missing the deadline for the program to take effect in 2021. The Board of Supervisors has until the end of August to agendize CCE or forego millions in cost savings for our residents and local businesses for yet another year.
With counties and cities up and down the Central Coast and throughout California joining in to save money, benefit their local economies, and preserve the environment, I believe the question isn’t if San Luis Obispo County will join, but when.
Will we rise to the occasion and recognize this key opportunity before us? Or will our county continue to lose out on millions in savings each year while our board majority drags its feet?
Of late, Debbie Arnold has been, unfortunately, the deciding vote against adopting Community Choice Energy. I urge her and her fellow majority members to do the right thing for the county and their constituents and support adopting this program before the deadline. Δ
Ellen Beraud is a candidate for 5th District SLO County supervisor. She is a former Atascadero mayor and City Council member, a small business owner, and a 30-year health care professional. Respond with an opinion piece of your own and email it to letters@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Education Today 2019.
I was at the Atascadero council meetings where a very professional representative of this company answered every question the council wanted to ask, but it was clear that the conservative majority Mayor Moreno, members Ms. Fonzi and Ms. Newsome had already made up their minds and did not want to even discuss the program. They could have directed staff to research any questions they had, but it was clear, they were against it if any trace of the words Climate Change were involved.
These are the same folks who (I am not making this up) in 2014 went thru the cities Climate Action Plan and CROSSED OUT THE WORDS CLIMATE CHANGE where ever they showed up. Yep, crossing out words certainly makes the problem go away. Just like refusing to even discuss this money saving but environmentally safe program makes climate change go away. See the below (abbreviated) New Times article from 1/15/14 for more details, and check out the original article for even more amazement.
If you want intelligent experienced leadership, from someone who listens to and supports the regular North County voters, and who is not rigidly bound to ideology but rather finds true solutions to our problems, vote for Ellen Beraud for Supervisor. Lets change this situation.
January 15, 2014News
Atascadero takes a fine-toothed comb to its Draft Climate Action Plan
BY JONO KINKADE
FINE-TOOTHED COMBS: Atascadero City Council strips language from Draft Climate Action Plan.
Then the council members had their turn. Heather Moreno and Roberta Fonzi brought out the red pens in an editing session that removed hundreds of wordsincluding entire paragraphsthat made any mention of human involvement in climate change, the effects it has on the community, or the potential benefits enjoyed by the city for the plans adoption.
One line struck from the executive summary, found early on in the 261-page document, reads: The [Climate Action Plan] will also help achieve multiple community goals such as lowering energy costs, reducing air pollution, supporting local economic development, and improving public health and quality of life.
(Yep, 95% of the scientists are lying to us, and we dont want any of this in Atascadero)
Dan Cook, Templeton
Thank you Ellen! This proven model allows for a choice for cleaner energy at a savings and it baffles me that someone would choose to not support a CCE because they don’t believe in the climate crisis, knowing that their decision negatively affects every Atascadero resident and business! Del Rey Oaks had a changing of the guard after their mayor declined to join Monterey Bay Community Power. They are now joining MBCP in 2021.
Just because some of your friends want to jump into the river doesnt mean you have to. Community Power purchase the rest of the story:
Thank heaven for a city council that wants to look behind the curtain of unknown information. The questions asked by our Atascadero City Council are valid. Just where is all of this green energy going to come from. Its dark at night and solar power would have to be subsidized with batteries that are not cost effective nor environmentally sustainable. What will the price of purchase and replacement of batteries be in the future? Trying to find and provide green energy would put the city in risk of inflated price costs as dams are removed. Where will energy be purchased from, Candida, Africa? The whole idea smells like a used car sales pitch with very small print in the contract. It sounds good today but whats to prevent the future price going up negates all of the savings today by gouging tomorrow. A city must plan for many years in the future not just tomorrow.
If you watch the video of the City Council meeting, you will see the questions were answered. It’s too bad that Atascadero residents and businesses won’t get to choose between two electricity providers like the majority of their neighbors. They will be stuck with one monopoly they’ve always had and will be paying more than their neighbors for dirtier power. Creating a choice for its customers is what this council put a stop to. Risk of inflated price Ed? customers have the choice to go back to PG&E at any time so no there is no risk of future inflated price costs no matter what happens in the renewable energy world in California.