May 12, 2025
Mayor Matt Mahan and Members of the San José City Council c/o San José Clean Energy
San José City Hall
200 East Santa Clara Street, 14th Floor
San José, CA 95113
Re: STRONG SUPPORT: Item 6.1 (File No. 25-489) – San José Clean Energy – Power Workforce and Environmental Stewardship Project Selection Criteria Dear Mayor Mahan and City Councilmembers,
On behalf of the CCA Workforce & Environmental Justice Alliance, we write to express our strong support for the San José Clean Energy – Power Workforce and Environmental Stewardship Project Selection Criteria, which will be considered under Agenda Item 6.1 (File No. 25-489) at your May 13, 2025 meeting.
We deeply appreciate the City’s leadership and staff’s collaborative approach in developing this thoughtful policy. It represents a meaningful step toward aligning San José’s clean energy investments with its values around good jobs, environmental stewardship, and equitable community engagement.
We look forward to partnering on implementation and continuous improvement of this important policy, and welcome the opportunity to engage with the City on other key energy and environmental issues in the future.
Sincerely,
Eric Veium, Tim Frank, & Leslie Austin
Co-directors, CCA Workforce & EJ Alliance
admin-office/opeiu#29/afl-cio
May 13, 2025
Honorable Mayor and City Councilmembers
City of San José
200 E. Santa Clara St.
San José, CA 95110
Re: May 13, 2025, Item 6.1: San José Clean Energy Power Workforce and Environmental Stewardship Project Selection Criteria.
Dear Mayor and City Councilmembers,
On behalf of the Santa Clara & San Benito Building & Construction Trades Council, I thank the City Council and the San José Clean Energy staff for your work on the Workforce and Environmental Stewardship Project Selection Criteria and urge the board to approve the proposed policy.
San José Clean Energy’s Power Purchase Agreements support billions of dollars worth of energy production and storage projects, creating large-scale impacts on workers and communities where the projects are located. Done right, these can be hugely positive impacts, creating good family -supporting jobs generating clean, renewable energy and building career pipelines for community members. However, there is also the danger of a “low-road” approach to project development which can lead to worker exploitation and damage to nearby communities.
By creating a preference for projects that meet strong labor, workforce, community, and environmental standards, the Project Selection Criteria will enable San José to send a signal to project developers. We strongly support the focus on high-road projects built with standards that will ensure availability of a skilled workforce, effective project delivery, and high quality of work needed for reliable operations over the long term.
We further support the policy’s inclusion of wage theft prevention measures, in alignment with City Council’s policy priorities as established in the 2024 Responsible Construction Ordinance.
Sincerely,
Javier M. Casillas
Business Manager