Adrian Bankhead <[email protected]>
Public Comments Agenda Item 13 and 15
Gabrielle Sloane Law <[email protected]> Wed, May 15, 2024 at 4:41 PM To: [email protected]
To the Ava Community Energy Board:
My name is Gabrielle Sloane Law. I am a resident of East Oakland (within Ava’s operating area) and an organizing intern with Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), where my work focuses on building resiliency in my community. I am writing to urge you to take the following actions on agenda items 13 and 15.
First, I ask you to collaborate with CBOs that are rooted in low-income BIPOC communities to develop a definition of Resilience Hubs that is not defined only by technical parameters, but which directly centers climate justice, environmental justice, and racial and social justice. We ask you to commit at least $15 million from your annual budget for a Community Resiliency Hub program supporting our communities, with some of this funding to be allocated to smaller CBOs, which will ensure that these resources are accessible to and trusted by the communities in which they operate. More specifically, we ask Ava to provide a grants program for smaller CBOs at $50,000/year for the next 3 years, which will allow these organizations to leverage existing, trusted community spaces as resilience hubs and—crucially—keep them in operation during this time. Resilience hubs only work when they are known to and trusted by the communities they serve. This is only possible when the community is able to have ownership over these spaces.
Second, I urge you to soundly reject any nuclear energy from PG&E. Nuclear energy has no place in Oakland or anywhere else. Ava Community Energy made a commitment to 100% clean, renewable energy, and nuclear energy is neither clean nor renewable. Nuclear energy is unacceptably dangerous to people and the environment. We ask you to reject nuclear energy and instead focus on building a truly sustainable clean energy infrastructure, which will usher in a just transition to clean energy while creating jobs and a growing our economy.
Thank you for your consideration,
Gabrielle Sloane Law
5/15/24, 4:51 PM Ava Community Energy Mail - Public Comments Agenda Item 13 and 15 https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ik=703fa6ea73&view=pt&search=all&permmsgid=msg-f:1799164035840364056&simpl=msg-f:1799164035840364056 1/1