From SanFranciscoEVA

The Minutes of past SFEVA Chapter Meetings!

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SFEVA MINUTES May 7, 2005

Ten people plus two guest speakers came to our May meeting. Marc gave an update on Dontcrush.com, the Campaign To Save Electric Cars, which launched this week. Toyota has been very unresponsive. Check out the Don’t Crush website, write letters to Toyota and the media, and order nifty T-shirts and other products with the slogan: “You built them. We want them. Don't crush them.” http://www.dontcrush.com

We also now have the beginning of an SFEVA store at http://www.cafepress.com/sfeva.

Marc and Sherry reported on their trip to the EAA all-chapters meeting in Austin, where the city-owned utility (yes, it’s called Austin Power) said they will be offering financial incentives to residents to purchase plug-in hybrids when they become available, and will be contacting the 50 largest U.S. cities to put together a joint purchase order for thousands of plug-in hybrids for government fleets. To show there is demand and to urge automakers to manufacture them.

Two guest speakers led discussions about legislation. Doug Beach, chair of the Bay Area Sierra Club’s Energy Committee, described San Francisco’s planned implementation of Community Choice Aggregation (CCA). The chapter voted to endorse CCA, and I wrote a letter this week from the chapter to Mayor Gavin Newsom urging him to help remove the last remaining roadblocks to implementing CCA.

In a nutshell, CCA is a system that allows a city to purchase electricity in bulk and re-sell it to its residents. PG&E would continue to own and operate its transmission and distribution systems, and be compensated for them. But under CCA the City would be able to entertain proposals from energy suppliers (including PG&E) who want to sell energy to our citizens, and could buy from the suppliers that most closely meet the City’s goals for renewable energy, etc. Plus, the City has the power to issue “Solar Bonds” under Proposition H (passed by voters in 2001), so San Francisco could build the sources of renewable energy to meet goals that will be set under the CCA. In other words, we’d be taking power over our power.

Eric Bowen of Environmental Entrepreneurs described Calif. Assembly Bill 1007, the Alternative Transportation Fuels Bill. The chapter agreed to endorse it, and I wrote a letter this week to the chair and members of the Assembly’s Appropriations Committee.

If you'd like to see either of these letters, email me and I'll send you a copy. Chapter members are encouraged to send emails to letters [at] sfchronicle [dot] com, letters [at] examiner [dot] com, and letters [at] sfbg [dot] com to generate greater attention to these issues by the media.

We also discussed endorsing Calif. Senate Bill 1, the Million Solar Roofs Initiative, but postponed a decision until can obtain a little more information about it. Watch the listserv for this soon.

Anyone who wants to read these bills or track specific pieces of legislation can sign up to get email reports and notices at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov.

The SFEVA is headed into a slew of public events. Anyone who can volunteer to help for a few hours at any of the following is asked to contact Sherry at shaalub [at] yahoo [dot] com or 415-681-7716:

June 4: PV/EV Workshop, 10 a.m. –12 noon, The San Francisco School. (Don’t really need volunteers for this, but would love to have friendly faces in the audience!)

June 3-5: Booth at Green Cities Expo, Fort Mason, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

June 25-26: Booth at GLBT Pride festival, Civic Center, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Sept. 9-11: Sierra Summit, Moscone Center, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Need EVs, drivers, and people to staff the booth.

October 1: Solar Tour of San Francisco, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Need EVs, drivers, and volunteers to be stationed at various homes to assist tour participants.

Nov. 5-6: Booth at the Green Festival, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Those events will count as our monthly meetings for June, Sept., Oct. and Nov. For July, we agreed to join the Independence (from Oil) Day Parade in Alameda. Our next meetings will be the first Sat. in August, and the first Sat. in December.