From: Cynthia Cannady
To: Gao, Beilei
Cc: Hampton, Tyron; Jones, Justin; Rick Cole; Lyon, Jason; Reyes, David; Márquez, Miguel Subject: Public comment for MSC Operating Budget agenda item today Date: Tuesday, May 27, 2025 1:41:54 PM
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May 27, 2025
Where is the climate emergency in this proposed operating budget? I searched and I couldn’t find it.
What I did see was the extra-large transfer from ratepayers to the city budget. (slide 7 shows a 58% increase from 2025 to 2026)
I did see 11 % growth in personnel costs in a single year. (see slide 7).
I did see that even though the cost of energy is down (see slide 10), and even though PWP had unusually high revenues, PWP wants to increase rates by 7.6 million (slide 18). This morning the local press is attributing this proposed rate increase to “green energy”, an assumption that is incorrect since there’s almost nothing in this budget that deals with that transition.
What I did not see were line items showing how PWP plans to implement the 100% carbon free portfolios that we paid consultants $1.3 million dollars to model. After more than 2 years we still don’t have a plan to implement Climate Emergency Resolution 9977. And even after the MSC and full Council gave clear direction to PWP this month to begin right away to develop the local solar resources that are required by the preferred portfolios, PWP is still delaying.
I was in Altadena over this past weekend, witnessing the empty blocks, the burned houses, the lone chimneys, the ashes on the sidewalk. I thought of the suffering of the people. I felt my own anxiety about fires and heat in our city. The climate emergency is real and it is now.
But this budget, and the CIP budget, are blind to the climate emergency and deaf to the calls of the people for local climate action.
We implore you to require staff to treat our situation like the climate emergency that it is.
Reject tthis operating budget until staff addresses the climate emergency that we face.
Cynthia Cannady
Chairperson, PASADENA 100 Coalition