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Council mulls energy crisis, what it means to Sunnyvale
Discusses both long and short term concerns on the horizon
By Daniel Hindin
Sunnyvale Mayor Jack Walker called a special meeting of the city council to discuss the energy crisis and what it all means to the city.
Council members met with City Manager Robert LaSala and key staff members during the March 27 meeting to brainstorm about small generator permitting for local companies, summertime demands, reduced consumption, the city's role in long-term solutions and state revenue impacts on local government.
With the possibility of the energy crisis coming to a head this summer, city officials are beginning to ready themselves for all sorts of worst case scenarios. And they're beginning to realize they're not prepared for a lot of them.
"I'd like to have policy on the book so we can act quickly," Walker said.
LaSala called the city's current energy policy "very thin and broad. Things aren't in place as much as we'd like," he said, adding, "No good idea gets dismissed."
For example, officials expect the larger Sunnyvale companies to start asking for permits to build personal generators on their own facilities, but the city doesn't have any sort of permitting process in place yet.
With many issues, they're constantly learning on the fly. The last series of rolling blackouts taught them a few things.
"I'm particularly worried about telephone services," said LaSala. "We have a 30-minute backup and then we'll lose voice contact."
Robert Walker, director of parks and recreation, added, "We thought public safety helped us out with that, but last time we found that they weren't. Now we're vulnerable."
Many officials expressed dismay with PG&E--they complained of lack of notification preceding blackouts. The city actually called PG&E to request more notice and, to put it nicely, they weren't happy with the answer they got.
Several council members mentioned the importance of notifying residents about which traffic signals are down and which intersections to avoid. Vice Mayor Fred Fowler proposed putting a crawl title on the bottom of cable channels as they do with severe weather warnings. Of course, this wouldn't help people whose electricity was out at the time, but there's only so much that can be done.
Talk soon moved to long term solutions. Walker talked up the possibility of requiring solar energy systems on all new facilities.
"With solar systems, you say that it may take a long time to make that money back," he said. "But, on the other hand, in this situation you may look at it differently."
Many officials were worried about the loss of state funding resulting from the cost of frantic electricity purchases.
"As the state spends incredible amounts of money, we're concerned about distribution. I haven't heard how the state intends to offset the billions of dollars they've spent, but we're way down on the food chain," said LaSala.
It was clear no one supported giving up local control of programs to obtain regional help with the situation.
And Sunnyvale resident Werner Gans seemed surer about the state of the city's energy situation than anyone else did.
"One thing is for certain," said Gans, who identified himself as "Werner Gans, air breather." "Cost will go up--air quality will go down. Incentive programs [for solar energy] are the way to go. If you want a permit [for a generator], go solar."
Gans even mentioned putting a plethora of solar panels over the city's filled in garbage dump.
"It's a large piece of land away from everything," he joked.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
