To hear all sides, SEAC had several presenters at our Feb 20, 2024 meeting to discuss whether or not the city of San Diego should create a municipal utility that would replace San Diego Gas & Electric.
Bernadette Butkiewicz, the Senior Public Affairs Manager for SDG&E and Cory Illeman, also from the SDG&E Public Affairs Office, were present. Bill Powers, speaking for Power San Diego, is a mechanical engineer with over 40 years of experience in energy and environmental engineering.
The Power San Diego Campaign, which we learned about at our November 2023 meeting, has proposed a ballot initiative to get the issue on the November 2024 ballot. To pay for SDG&E’s electricity distribution assets a municipal revenue bond would be amortized over 30 years. The city commissioned a feasibility study of municipal power that was conducted by NewGen. Phase 1 was completed in July, 2023 and Phase 2 will be completed in the summer of 2025.
Here is the video recording from the SEAC meeting on Youtube
To complete the input on this potential ballot initiative, we are having two more presentations:
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San Diego Community Power is speaking to SEAC and Public Policy at our April 16, 2024 SEAC meeting at 4pm
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The City of San Diego will speak about the feasibility study of public power commissioned by the City of San Diego, both phase 1 completed by NewGen in July 2023, and phase 2 which will be completed in the summer of 2025. This will be a special time and date on April 8, 2024 at 9:30 am, a joint SEAC Public Policy meeting.
Next meeting: March 12, 2024 at 4pm with guest speaker Dr. Tarik Benmarhni who leads the public health, epidemiology, and environmental justice group.
https://socalheathub.ucsd.edu/project-overview/
https://socalheathub.ucsd.edu/theme-2/