San Diego Metropolis Council Approves New Franchise Agreements With SDG&E

Photograph by Andrew Bowen

Over: Electric power strains at an SDG&E facility in North Park are observed here on Sept. 26, 2017.

The San Diego Town Council on Tuesday authorized a pair of 20-calendar year agreements with San Diego Gasoline & Electric that enables the utility to proceed giving electric power and gas to San Diego homes and firms.

The 6-3 vote was the fruits of years of research, public outreach and negotiations, with activists pressuring Mayor Todd Gloria to shorten the promotions and add stronger accountability steps for the utility.

But Gloria explained in a assertion just after the vote that the bargains he struck — technically independent agreements for gasoline and electric power — were being a good compromise.

“These agreements give our residents what they ought to have: certainty, accountability, choices for cleanse vitality and pathways to achieve local climate equity for all our neighborhoods,” Gloria mentioned.

Related: Activists Want Additional Police Cuts In Mayor’s Closing Budget Proposal

The bargains, known as “franchise agreements,” let SDG&E to hold its electricity and gas strains on city-owned land. In exchange, the utility’s shareholders will spend the town $80 million more than the program of the contracts. They will also pay one more $20 million into the city’s “climate fairness fund” and supply $10 million in photo voltaic energy rebates to historically underserved neighborhoods.

The city can exit the offers following 10 many years for any explanation, with the acceptance of two-thirds of the Metropolis Council. But if the city chooses that route, it would have to refund SDG&E a portion of the income baked into the promotions.

“We would basically at 10 several years be owning to give up, by my account, close to $40 million to get out of this,” stated Councilmember Monica Montgomery Steppe. “It can make it really, incredibly hard to justify and to truly make those off ramps feasible.”

Montgomery Steppe and councilmembers Joe LaCava and Vivian Moreno voted in opposition to the bargains. Voting in favor were being Council President Jen Campbell and councilmembers Stephen Whitburn, Marni von Wilpert, Chris Cate, Raul Campillo and Sean Elo-Rivera.

Linked: Why Is San Diego’s Mayor Including $19 Million To The Police Spending plan?

A host of city residents known as into the council assembly in the two aid and opposition. Among the opponents had been quite a few local environmental teams, which say SDG&E’s dad or mum organization, Sempra Energy, is also invested in fossil fuels. The opponents also consist of these in favor of developing a town-owned utility like those people that exist in Los Angeles and Sacramento.

Among the supporters were being many SDG&E employees and users of regional labor unions, which saw shorter-phrase specials as a menace to the utility’s unionized workforce.

Councilmember von Wilpert explained while she would have most well-liked a shorter-term settlement, Gloria’s proposal was the almost certainly the most effective 1 the metropolis could get.

“The mayor pushed genuinely hard to construct transparency, compliance and accountability into this difficult negotiation,” von Wilpert explained. “We have an audit for the to start with time at any time. We have a citizens oversight committee for the first time ever. So for these factors I assume the mayor obtained a superior offer … and I will be voting yes.”

There have been a couple of last-minute improvements to the agreements. At the behest of Councilmember Elo-Rivera, SDG&E agreed to make its payments into the city’s local climate fairness fund in $2 million yearly installments commencing immediately, instead than $5 million installments commencing in 2037. He also requested that the town set apart a part of the revenues from the offer in case the metropolis chooses to exit it right after 10 decades.

And Mayor Gloria agreed to fund a analyze on the feasibility of municipalization — a ordinarily extensive, costly and legally fraught procedure that would have the city buy SDG&E’s assets and type its very own utility.

Andrew Bowen

Metro Reporter

I address neighborhood governing administration — a broad defeat that includes housing, homelessness and infrastructure. I’m specially interested in the intersections of land use, transportation and local climate alter.&#13
&#13

To see PDF files, Download Acrobat Reader.