As members of the Earth Care Committee at St. Benedict’s Episcopal Church, we consider wise stewardship of the resources in this county a sacred responsibility. We share this as Christians with all the major spiritual traditions of the world. Two years ago, several of our members attended and spoke at a Board of Supervisors meeting where a feasibility study for a Community Choice Energy (CCE) program was approved for our county. We were happy about this action.
CCE programs have been shown to make sense, and thus they are growing rapidly across this state. Marin, Sonoma, and San Francisco counties, for example, have ones successfully in place, and many others, like Los Angeles, Monterey, and Santa Cruz, will add them by the end of this year. CCE programs are demonstrably saving both energy—important in these days of climate change, and money—important for cash-strapped local governments. With the Diablo Power Plant closing, the need to develop a viable energy program with significant economic benefits has now become urgent.
Thus our disbelief and dismay at learning of the board’s recent rejection of the study that found a CCE would likely be feasible for SLO County. We ask them to reconsider this decision and allow more information to be examined.
Earth Care Committee members: Rev. Michael Eggleston, Joan Ghilotti, Rev. Caroline Hall, John Horsley, Joe Morris, Bob Pelfrey, Rev. Barry Turner, and Alice Welchert
San Luis Obispo
This article appears in Weddings 2018.
The selfish and reckless behavior from some of local elected officials needs to be acknowledged for what it is: poor, incompetent and deceptive leadership that lacks due respect for the public and truth.
With local elections coming up this year, the best thing any of us can do to restore integrity and common-sense to the SLO County Board of Supervisors and provide a good example of leadership to all is to join the Republican/Democratic Coalition in support of Jimmy Paulding for County Supervisor.
Paulding deserves the support of each of the sitting board members, Republican and Democrat: Gibson, Compton, Peschong, Arnold and Hill, each of whom consider Paulding a formidable candidate and the most qualified to run for a SLO County board seat in decades.