Dear City Council Members,
As you are likely aware I am a co-founder and current Chair of Menlo Spark, am a former two-term Environmental Quality Commissioner (and two-time Chair), and one of the leaders of the Menlo Park Green Ribbon Citizens’ Committee in 2007. I am a 29-year resident of the Willows.
Since it may not be possible for me to speak at tonight’s Council meeting I am sharing these comments for your consideration.
It is a relief to see this important electrification opportunity for Belle Haven residents finally reaching City Council. L1 addresses the first 50% of the $4.5M California grant that has been received by the City of Menlo Park and is available for use. These funds were approved in July 2022 and then were subject to a lengthy CEC review before being authorized for transfer to Menlo Park.
In the meantime, staff and the Environmental Quality Commission needed to determine feasible ways to actually implement the electrification measures addressed in this grant, keeping in mind the intent to prioritize historically under-served lower income residents in Belle Haven.
During the 15 months that these funds have moved through the process, vulnerable residents without air conditioning have continued to experience heat emergencies and in some cases may also be impacted by undetected methane leaks from gas appliances which we can contribute to asthma and other respiratory ailments.
In other words, there are health and safety benefits to electrifying as many of these homes as possible, as quickly as possible, and detriments to further delays in doing so. Once staff is provided direction at this study session there will need to be documentation of any agreement that you direct staff to effect and the resulting documentation will need to come back to you for approval.
Then and only then will the City’s implementation partner(s) and outreach partner(s) be able to secure agreements with residents to schedule and then move forward with this electrification work.
It is imperative that this process move forward quickly, as the City now has less than 3 years to deploy the full $4.5 million grant.
So, please, act quickly so that heat risks to our residents can be mitigated as quickly as possible and ensure that these funds can be used as intended, to electrify the homes of our City’s most vulnerable residents.
Menlo Spark is poised to work with several of our partner organizations to connect with as many qualifying residents as possible to dialogue with them about the benefits of electrification and support them in coming to an informed decision. Based on early outreach we are aware of concerns and potential obstacles faced by homeowners and have been in dialogue with City staff to address them.
In our opinion staff has done an excellent job identifying Peninsula Clean Energy (PCE) as the most sensible and expeditious fund administrator and implementation partner, and also in integrating the careful work and recommendations of the Environmental Quality Commission (EQC). Among these recommendations, I note the following as being of critical importance:
1) A priority on eligible homes in District 1, first and foremost.
2) A selection of PCE as the fund’s administrator, to leverage PCE’s existing program and experience, thereby avoiding expending additional city staff time to create an implementation program from scratch.
3) PCE’s “eligibility requirements” and “eligibility measures”, as outlined in the staff report Attachment A: “Peninsula Clean Energy Menlo Park State Funds Electrification Proposal” (p. L-1.7).
4) A road map to onboard as many eligible homes in District 1 as possible, given that the state has a strict deadline of June 30 2026 for expenditure (after which the funds will be forfeited).
a. This includes staff’s recommendation to raise the income limit from 80% AMI to 120% AMI with methods to ensure that residents on the lower end of the income spectrum receive priority.
b. This also includes the possible inclusion of rental properties. Please see my recommendation below on crucial rental protections needed at the city level not just for this program but for the future in general as our city prepares for pending regional and likely future state regulations in this context.
In addition to staff’s recommendations above, I recommend that you add the the following:
I. Electrify Menlo Park [a project of Menlo Spark] is now likely to have additional sources of funding for its clean energy workforce development program. It appears likely (though not yet guaranteed) that Electrify Menlo Park can source the $100,000 from outside partners and/or the state for this purpose. Thus, we recommend holding the $100,000 for this purpose through the end of 2023 in case other funding sources fall through. At that point, assuming other funding sources become guaranteed for workforce development, this $100,000 can be added to the initial funds administered by PCE to electrify Belle Haven homes.
II. Please consider, as consistent with EQCs recommendation, a “quick start” program (in partnership with PCE) to get more efficient heating in place for Belle Haven residents in late 2023, if possible. This would be subject to PCE’s willingness and ability to do so, of course. For residents that have non-working or poorly working gas furnaces, receiving a no cost heat pump solution in time for next winter will help these residents stay warm and potentially save on expensive monthly heating bills.
III. Please begin a new city effort to add additional rental protection city code to prevent displacement as homes increase in value due to retrofits that improve the efficiency/health/safety of the home. Last week Electrify Menlo Park provided staff with a draft overview of rental protection needs and resources to prevent displacement in District 1. Any process to establish new rental control policies should include a multi-lingual, robust public process (in person, not during work hours) to engage District 1 residents in efforts to create draft policy, as consistent with the new EJ element. These rental protection policies will be crucial not just for the upcoming $4.5m deployment but also for the future in general, including pending and future regional and state regulations involving home electrification. Electrify Menlo Park is happy to share with Council the draft that was provided to staff for this purpose.
Thank you for all of your efforts on the City’s Climate Action Plan and, in particular, for moving quickly to ensure that these electrification grant funds are fully utilized as intended.
Mitch Slomiak
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Mitchel J. Slomiak
Chair, Advisory Board
Menlo Spark
