1 From: BRUCE KARNEY
Sent: Sunday, April 7, 2024 9:30 PM
To: City Council
Cc: Lee, Danielle; McCarthy, Kimbra; Carbon Free Mountain View Subject: Item 4.2 Repeal of All-electric Requirement on 4/9/24 MV Council Agenda CAUTION: EXTERNAL EMAIL - Ensure you trust this email before clicking on any links or attachments.
Dear Council Members,
Many residents, including myself, were distressed to learn that the public was not offered an opportunity to weigh in on the possible repeal of the 5-year old "all electric" provisions of our building code.
I request that you pull 4.2 from Consent on Tuesday for public input and in-depth discussion by the Council.
I hope the Council delay any decision regarding repeal until AFTER the next scheduled Council Sustainability Committee meeting, which I have been told will be on April 16.
What I hope is that if repeal must take place, it will be enacted concurrently with one or more measures that will provide strong disincentives for gas in new construction, such as:
1) requiring that the new building be fully wired to be converted to all-electric so that the costs of preparing for the inevitable all-electric future will be borne by the initial developer, not by subsequent owners.
or
2) announcing the Council's intention to end the flow of piped natural gas throughout Mountain View no later than July 4, 2045. By making it clear that piped natural gas has no long term future here, sensible developers will not install gas infrastructure and appliances it even if there is no prohibition on doing so.
I expect that many voices will be raised in support of these ideas at the next Council Meeting, and perhaps even better alternative ideas will arise.
Cheers,
Bruce Karney
Chair, Carbon Free Mountain View