As one of the nation’s top solar generating cities, San Diego is a popular place for the business of solar installation. The city has the most solar installations and generating power in the state and more solar rooftops than either Los Angeles or oh-so-green San Francisco, according to advocacy group Environment California.

While the idea of solar power came early and obvious to San Diegans who enjoy more than 300 sunny days a year, most of the solar installation businesses remained small and local until the combination of rebates, tax credits and financing schemes began with the California Solar Initiative and became more substantial with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

“It’s difficult to keep track of the businesses because solar energy is blossoming so quickly here,” said Sue Kately, executive director of the California Solar Energy Industries Association. “But most of the companies installing solar energy systems are small, local companies with fewer than 25 employees.”

California has about 770 companies in the solar installation business, according the association.

A study by Berkeley-based The Greenlining Institute released in January found that the 10 largest installation companies captured just 41 percent of the large-scale installation work in the state, and less than 30 percent of the small-scale installation contracts. Put another way, there’s plenty of room for small companies to compete in the rapidly changing industry.

“Smaller companies have shown the greatest concern and connection for the communities they serve,” said Samuel Kang, managing attorney for The Greenlining Institute. “They are more likely to be diverse and to reflect the diversity of their communities.”

Solar Benefits Converge

Small businesses are also benefiting from the combination of decreasing wholesale prices, extraordinary rebates and incentives, and a national consciousness moving toward sustainable resources.

“We’ve been growing like crazy and it’s going to get better,” said Trey McCann, director of operations for Solaire Energy Systems, a Mission Valley-based company with 11 employees. “With the rebates and better financing options, we’ve seen a lot of growth in the past year and we expect the demand will increase rapidly.”

Solaire is a family-owned business, started by Jarrod Fisk, who worked in heating, ventilation and air conditioning while he started the solar energy business out of his home four years ago. He moved to San Diego from Orange County because there’s far more interest in alternative energy here, McCann said.

The company works on mostly residential installations, buoyed by generous rebates, tax credits and incentives.

Like many small companies, the focus is on technical expertise and financing. Marketing has been taking care of itself, as the world turns green.

“We’re set up to work with the city and state on rebates, and we work with the California Credit Union pretty regularly on financing,” McCann said. “Right now, customers are finding their way to us.”

Consolidation Trend

Solaire and many smaller businesses share that in common — and it makes them ripe for consolidation, according to Solar Today magazine Deputy Editor Seth Masia.

“What we think will be the next trend is consolidation, as the companies merge or are acquired,” Masia said. “Most of these smaller companies are started by engineers and construction guys, people who like to bolt stuff together. They save money on administration and insurance, get help with marketing and can go back to being paid to do what they really like to do.”

Acro Energy Technologies Corp., Real Goods Solar, SolarCity and Akeena Solar Inc. are among the most aggressive large solar companies acquiring smaller companies, according to Rhonda Fried, director of SustainableBusiness.com. Acro, she notes, began acquiring California companies in February 2009 and is already in the top 10 market share for small solar installations.

None of the big 10 installation companies are based here, but most have local offices, including Akeena, a publicly held company.

Akeena launched in Silicon Valley in 2001, after founder Barry Cinnamon put panels on his own roof — and then on his neighbors’ roof.

Akeena has several different businesses within the company. The company builds its own panels, selling to installers, and just recently began working with Lowe’s home improvement stores to sell photovoltaic solar panels and easy installation kits directly to the public. The company also installs both large- and small-scale solar projects.

“We’ve grown into the largest solar company in California, with seven offices statewide,” said Jose Tengco, Akeena’s director of public affairs. “We’ve worked extensively in San Diego and we’ll be here in the small and large installation markets for some time to come.”

Public anger over bank bailouts and fat Wall Street bonuses has put enormous pressure on President Obama to crack down – but a crackdown isn’t enough. It’s time to take positive steps to push our banking system to better serve all of America’s diverse communities.

Happily, an existing law provides the perfect vehicle. It just needs some long-overdue updates.

That law is called the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Originally passed in 1977 to curb the illegal practice of “redlining” – discriminatorily refusing to lend to residents in minority and low-income communities, even while taking deposits from those neighborhoods – CRA encourages banks to meet the credit needs of the communities in which they operate.

As a result of this law banks have increasingly come to treat low-income communities as potentially profitable markets, not burdens. CRA commitments have led to successful partnerships between banks and community groups, helping to bring about projects like community health centers and affordable housing, as well as spurring increased lending to small businesses. In short, CRA benefits Main Street, AND Wall Street.

What CRA did not do – despite some irresponsible charges to the contrary – is bring about last year’s subprime mortgage crisis and the ensuing financial industry meltdown. Indeed, three quarters of those risky subprime mortgages were made by independent mortgage brokers or other institutions not subject to the CRA. And banks subject to the CRA were two-thirds less likely to offer borrowers the sorts of high-cost mortgages that forced too many homeowners into foreclosure.

But while CRA has done much good, it has not evolved as quickly as the financial industry. This year, Congress will consider possible enhancements to CRA. With a few simple steps, Congress can update CRA to better serve Main Street:

Expand CRA to Cover Other Financial Institutions

The vast majority of predatory lending occurred from non-CRA regulated entities. It’s time to apply the CRA, including its critical “safety and soundness” standard, to all sectors of the financial industry.

Get More Data

Much financial data collection – for example, on small business lending – fails to track information on race or ethnicity. What data we do have show that this is a critical piece of the puzzle. For example, African-Americans and Latinos are more likely to receive subprime loans, even after controlling for income and credit scores. What we don’t know – which is plenty – is hurting us.

Give CRA Both Carrots and Sticks

Ultimately, the goal of CRA should be building wealth and prosperity in all communities.  The simplest way to do this is to give CRA credit for what already works: investing in green construction, affordable housing, and community development loans; providing access to banking services to the millions who have no bank accounts; and implementing strong programs to ensure that the companies that banks work with represent the whole community, including minority-owned and operated businesses.

And CRA ratings have to matter. Currently, almost all banks receive a satisfactory rating, regardless of any meaningful commitment to the community. This needs to change.

For banks that receive poor CRA ratings, there should be meaningful consequences such as fines that go to a community benefits fund, higher rates on depository insurance, limits on executive compensation, and a requirement to submit proposals for improvement.

Much attention is understandably focused on problems with the financial system, but progress requires much more than just assigning blame. Many of us are unhappy with the banks right now, but banks will be with us, like it or not.

Lending is still down and people are still suffering, but the opportunity is now.
Reforming the CRA can open up vast new opportunities for communities that are most in need. It’s time to push America’s banks to be true partners with the communities they serve.

Recent reports that financial legerdemain engineered by Goldman Sachs helped destabilize the Greek economy ought to make Californians nervous. It’s time to ask if Goldman could do to us what it appears to have done to the Greeks and, indirectly, to the rest of Europe.

In February, major news organizations reported that the Federal Reserve Board is investigating the role that Goldman – a major recipient of federal bailout funds during our own financial meltdown – played in the Greek debt crisis. The firm used complex financial instruments called “derivatives” to help the Greek government hide the fact that it was in debt up to its eyeballs and getting in deeper.

That, in turn, allowed Greece’s participation in the Euro, Europe’s common currency, under what may have been false pretenses. “One deal created by Goldman Sachs helped obscure billions in debt from budget overseers in Brussels,” the New York Times reported. The deal, “hidden from public view … helped Athens to meet Europe’s deficit rules while continuing to spend beyond its means.”

There are reasons to be nervous about California’s entanglement with Goldman, which has been a major participant in bond sales to finance our state’s ballooning deficit.

For example, the Los Angeles Times reported in November 2008 that Goldman had urged some of its biggest clients to place investment bets against the very California bonds that it had helped sell. Such actions could increase investors’ fears about the state’s credit, officials told the paper, thereby driving up the interest rate the state must pay to sell the bonds, increasing the cost to taxpayers.

More recently, Bloomberg News reported that a $4.5 billion state bond offering, handled by Goldman, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase, fizzled last October, bringing in less money and costing the state more in interest than anticipated. The state had chosen to forego competitive bids in giving the deal to the trio of companies – which, according to Bloomberg, “made 12.4 million on the deal, contributing to record bonuses in the securities industry a year after getting a total of $80 billion in a federal bailout.”

It is time for the legislature to hold an investigatory hearing into the possible risks of California’s relationship with Goldman Sachs. Legislators should ask some basic questions: Just how much exposure does the state have to Goldman? Has the firm been transparent about any counsel it has provided to the state regarding finances?

At the same time, officials might ask why Goldman is happy to profit from our bond business while refusing to invest in California’s needs. In a February 2 meeting with  the Greenlining Institute, the company claimed that it does not do business in California and therefore does not intend to invest in California in the foreseeable future – even as it is developing a major program of community development and investments in New York.

That seems an odd statement in light of the firm’s considerable California bond business. In fact, in 2008, about seven percent of Goldman’s global business could be attributed to California operations. In dollar terms, that means our state contributed about $2.1 billion to the company’s profits from 2006 through 2008.

All major banks doing business in California have substantial community reinvestment commitments aimed at low and moderate income communities. Bank of America, for example, has committed half a trillion dollars to Community Reinvestment Act programs in California over 10 years. Goldman, which managed to pay $11 billion in bonuses during the financial crisis year of 2008, has committed zero.

Something looks wrong here. It’s time for officials to ask some serious questions about California’s relationship with a firm whose track record can only be described as disturbing.

The $250 million that California is about to save by slashing vital rehabilitation programs for prisoners will cost us many times that much money. The money we think we’re saving will cost us many times over in more crime, more drug abuse and ruined lives. Rehabilitation and alternative programs can save lives. I know. One of them saved mine.

I grew up in Boyle Heights, a rough section of East Los Angeles, in the 1980s. Poverty, gangs, drugs and violence plagued our community. But I was lucky enough to stay out of most of it – until one night, at age 19, I did something stupid.

A friend and I were attacked by a group of teens. In the struggle, I fired a shot from a handgun, scattering the crowd but striking one of the assailants in the forearm. Luckily, he was not seriously hurt. My friend and I also escaped with only minor injuries.

But I was charged with a felony. My friends urged me to fight the charges on grounds of self-defense. Instead, I took responsibility for my action. I pleaded guilty to felony assault with a deadly weapon.

I was fortunate. Because I had no criminal convictions and with numerous letters of support from former teachers and mentors, the judge gave me a lenient sentence: six months in county jail followed by five years’ probation. I was accepted into an alternative work-furlough program that allowed me to get a job at an attorney’s office during the day. I spent my nights and weekends in a South Los Angeles halfway house.

Two months after completing my sentence, I was given parole. This allowed me to leave Los Angeles and resume my education at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where I graduated with a degree in psychology.

I went on to receive a master’s degree in public affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas.

Since that incident in 1993, I’ve worked and volunteered at nearly a dozen nonprofit organizations. I have mentored at-risk youths, built affordable housing and organized low-income families.

For the most part, I have dedicated my life to remedying the economic situations that lead to youth violence.

Chances are none of this would have happened if that judge and parole board hadn’t believed in me. They allowed me to participate in the work-furlough program and let me out on parole to continue my studies.

We know that rehabilitation programs work. A study in the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency found that graduates of such programs are less likely to return to a life of crime. The 2000 study of 33 educational, vocational and work programs for prisoners found that participants were more than 20 percent less likely to reoffend than non-participants. Studies of prison drug-treatment programs have documented similar success rates.

Every prisoner who becomes a productive citizen through rehabilitation programs translates to saved tax dollars and innocent lives saved from crime victimization.

But even before the new cuts, we still don’t have nearly enough of these programs.

For example, a 2009 grand jury report on California State Prison, Solano, found “a long list of inmates waiting” to get into Prison Industry Authority programs that provide work experience. These prisoners want help preparing for legitimate jobs, but aren’t receiving it. As a result, California prisoners have the highest recidivism rate in the nation: Seventy percent reoffend after leaving prison, more than twice the rate of New York.

And it will only get worse as these new cuts go forward. The few dollars we save today will be swamped by what these “savings” will force us to spend tomorrow on police, courts, prisons – and funerals for victims of violent crimes that might have been prevented if we hadn’t been so short-sighted.

A far-sighted rehabilitation program saved my life from ruin. Let’s save lives, not delude ourselves over false cost savings.

Making students jump through admissions hoops is essential to a world-class university’s prestige. However, for students of color and students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, that hoop is about to shrink in size. Proposed by UC President Mark Yudof and approved by the UC Regents, the new UC admissions policy, set to go into effect in 2012, is a deceptive piece of work that actually reduces the percentage of high school students guaranteed admission to at least one UC campus while masking its true nature by expanding the pool of applicants eligible to apply. Although these reductions in guaranteed admissions will affect all applicants, this policy will disproportionately impact students of color.

There are three main features of the new admissions policy: it reduces the percentage of students guaranteed admission to a UC from the top 12.5% of statewide high school graduates to the top 10%; it eliminates the SAT II Subject Test as a UC requirement; and it increases the percentage of seniors who are guaranteed admission within each high school (“Eligibility in Local Context”) from the top 4% of a high school graduating class to the top 9%. Overall, this policy will expand the pool of applicants eligible to apply to UC by as many as 30,000 students, which, according to Yudof and UC Academic Senate Chair Mary Croughan, will “increase opportunity” and allow well-qualified students who have not taken the subject tests to have their application considered for comprehensive review.

While there are several positive aspects of the new policy – particularly in decisions to expand both the Eligibility in Local Context and the pool of applications that UC will review – there are critical problems with the policy’s implementation that severely compromise its overall effectiveness and intended goals.

First, this policy relies on a murky category of students who are “entitled to review, but not guaranteed admission,” thus deflecting attention from the administration’s reduced commitment to hard admissions guarantees. By eliminating the SAT II Subject Test which admittedly has been a barrier for students in lower socioeconomic classes and many minorities as a UC requirement, the policy does allow more students to apply to UC than under the current policy; yet having one’s application reviewed does not guarantee admission, particularly at a time when campuses like UC Berkeley are cutting back in-state enrollment in order to save money. According to UC Office of the President’s (UCOP) own data, approximately 18,000 fewer CA high school graduates would have been eligible for guaranteed UC admission had this policy been in effect in 2007.

Second, the elimination of the SAT II as a UC requirement means that the criteria for deciding the top 10% of high school graduates statewide will be more heavily based on scores from the SAT I, a test that privileges groups with access to test-prep. resources.
Yet, in the policy’s defense, the administration argues that the percentage of students eligible for admission in their local context will increase and thereby level the playing field for students from poorer schools. As UCOP studies show, such a boon, however, is nullified by the overall reduction in guaranteed admissions. Although the pool of students eligible to apply might be larger and more diverse, the actual group of students eligible for guaranteed admissions will be increasingly homogeneous. According to a California Postsecondary Education Commission eligibility study, 50% fewer African Americans, 42% fewer Chicano/Latinos, 41% fewer Filipinos, 39% fewer Pacific Islanders, and 36% fewer Asian Americans would have been eligible for guaranteed admission had the policy been effective in 2007.

In short, this policy does not validate the UC Regents’ claim that it will increase diversity on UC campuses. Of the three UCOP simulation studies, two demonstrated that this policy would be damaging to diversity in student admissions, and one showed negligible impact. If the best case scenario results in a neutral outcome and the worst indicates a drastic decrease in diversity, then we must question the university administration’s folly in implementing this policy.

The 2012 admissions policy, as with recent decisions to reduce the size of the incoming freshman class while increasing out-of-state and international enrollment from 12 to 23 percent, creates the most devastating climate for diversity in the UC system since the passage of Proposition 209. The promise of “entitled to review, but not guaranteed admission” is ultimately a hollow one. What is necessary now more than ever is a policy that can deliver tangible results–not a policy that, under the cloak of increasing diversity, permits the university to accept fewer qualified in-state students.

The university administration has argued that Californians must communicate their concerns for public education to Sacramento. Yet we submit that the university itself must act, in principled and forthright ways, to preserve a public vision for the UC system. For starters, the administration must rescind its disastrous 2012 admissions policy.

The $250 million that California will save by slashing vital rehabilitation programs for prisoners will cost many times that much in increased crime, drug abuse and ruined lives. Every Californian will be hurt by these “economies” that really aren’t economies at all.

I know that alternative programs can save lives. One of them saved mine.

I grew up in the 1980s in Boyle Heights, a section of East Los Angeles plagued by poverty, gangs, drugs and violence. I managed to stay out of most of it — until one night, at age 19, I did something stupid.

A friend and I were attacked by a group of teens about our age. In the exchange, I fired a shot from a handgun, dispersing the crowd but striking one of the assailants in the forearm. Luckily, no one was seriously hurt.

I was charged with a felony. Friends urged me to fight it on grounds of self-defense. Instead, I took responsibility for my action and pleaded guilty to felony assault with a deadly weapon.

With no criminal convictions and numerous letters of support from former teachers and mentors, I received a lenient sentence: Six months in county jail followed by five years’ probation. I was accepted into an alternative work-furlough program that allowed me to get a job at an attorney’s office during the day, spending nights and weekends in a South L.A. halfway house.

Two months after completing my sentence, I was given parole, allowing me resume my education at UC Santa Cruz, where I graduated with a degree in psychology. I went on to receive a master’s degree in public affairs from the University of Texas.

Since then,I’ve worked and volunteered at nearly a dozen nonprofit organizations, mentoring at-risk youth, building affordable housing and organizing low-income families. I have dedicated my life to remedying the economic situations that lead to youth violence.

None of this might have happened if that judge and parole board hadn’t allowed me to join the work-furlough program and let me out on parole to continue my studies.

Rehabilitation programs work. A study of 33 educational, vocational and work programs for prisoners published in 2000 in the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency found that participants were more than 20 percent less likely to re-offend than non-participants. Prison drug treatment programs have similar success rates.

Every prisoner who is helped to become a productive citizen equals saved tax dollars and innocent members of the community who won’t become crime victims. But we don’t have nearly enough of these programs, even before the new budget cuts.

A 2009 grand jury report on the California State Prison – Solano in Vacaville found “a long list of inmates waiting” to get into Prison Industry Authority programs that provide work experience — prisoners who want help preparing for legitimate jobs, but who aren’t receiving it. As a result, California prisoners have the nation’s highest recidivism rate: 70 percent, more than twice the rate of New York.

With these new cuts, things will get worse. A few dollars saved today will be swamped by what these “savings” will make us spend tomorrow on police, courts, prisons — and funerals for victims of violent crimes that might have been prevented.

While global warming has propelled environmental issues into the mainstream of American politics, an all-day hearing activists held recently in East Oakland showed the difficulty of translating concern into action in the neighborhoods hit hardest by environmental problems.

If the hearing was designed to rally and inform residents of the East Oakland neighborhood where it was held, or to put pressure on area political officials, there is clearly a long way to go. Few attendees said they were from East Oakland, and most officials were longtime environmental activists or already sympathetic to the cause.

But organizers raised many points during the Feb. 13 session to brainstorm solutions to the complex environmental problems faced by many of the Bay Area’s poorest residents.

About 50 environmental activists met at Oakland’s Allen Temple Baptist Church for the first of three “Toxic Triangle” hearings. The public meetings are designed to “call for an end to the unequal enforcement of environmental laws and disproportionate environmental impacts in low-income communities of color” and present “demands for justice” to policymakers, officials and regulators.

Organizers call themselves the Toxic Triangle Coalition, which they say is comprised of more than a dozen local advocates, community and faith-based organizations, research and policy institutes working to end to the “toxic assault” in the Bay Area’s “Toxic Triangle.”

The triangle is spread across the low-income neighborhoods of Richmond, Bay View-Hunter’s Point in San Francisco, and West and East Oakland, where the collection of freeways, heavy truck traffic, oil refineries, abandoned industrial plants, World War II era defense facilities and seaports create a dense soup of environmental pollution.

Margaret Gordon, who helped run the discussion, said these communities have shared issues around land use, air quality, health issues and economic development. Gordon was appointed by Mayor Ron Dellums to the Oakland Port Commission after years working for environmental justice. She said these communities have not had “land use laws, public health laws or air quality laws that answer to any of those issues.”

Peralta Community College professor Nehanda Imara of Communities for a Better Environment, who helped lead the session, said the area’s many environmental problems would not be the focus of the discussion.

“We already know the problems,” she said. “We want to collaborate on recommended solutions.”

Others present included Allen Temple Baptist associate pastor Reverend Daniel Buford and Henry Clark of the West County Toxics Coalition. Other organizations included the Greenlining Institute and Green Action.

Buford, who has worked in the environmental justice movement for several years, said the coalition “wants to put focus and light” on the three targeted communities. Environmental pollution, he said, makes these communities “like gas ovens without walls.”

Buford singled out the East Oakland flatlands, which he said have some of the highest asthma and infant mortality rates, and among the lowest life expectancy rates, in the region. Poor environmental conditions in the Bay Area’s low income neighborhoods, he said, violates three separate human rights treaties: the United Nations Convention Against Torture, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Buford said the treaties and all applicable environmental protection laws must be enforced in low income communities.

Organizers circulated a pledge among public officials in attendance, asking them to work with the planning committee to take action on the group’s goals, including setting stricter emissions limits and land-use and zoning guidelines within the Toxic Triangle and the adoption of Climate Action Plans for those communities.

Afternoon panels of officials and regulators included Oakland CIty Councilmember Nancy Nadel, California 14th District Assemblymember Nancy Skinner, East Bay Municipal Utilities District Commissioner Andy Katz, and AC Transit Director Chris Peeples, all of whom have long track records of working for environmental justice.

Nadel, who represents West Oakland for the City Council, said her community’s problem is that “while most of the smokestack facilities have gone,” the area has to deal with toxic waste embedded in “the land they left behind.” Nadel has been fighting for years to convert abandoned industrial properties into spaces for green energy jobs.

“We’re not going to pit the environment and the economy against each other,” she said. “We can improve both at the same time.”

No one attended the session from the offices of Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums or City Councilmember Larry Reid, who represents those who live in the district where the hearing was held, East Oakland’s 7th district.

Organizers said following the meeting that they did not know if anyone attempted to invite the mayor. The group made a “general contact” with Oakland’s city councilmembers, but did not invite them individually.

Marie Harrison, a Bayview-Hunters Point-based activist with Greenaction, said she was “disappointed” that not all the local officials made it, but promised the coalition would press forward to get commitments from public officials to support the coalition’s goals.

“It does not end here,” she said.

Meanwhile, the East Oakland component of the coalition’s work presents unique challenges. Over the past several years, toxic waste abatement and environmental justice groups have worked to clean up Bayview-Hunters Point, Richmond and West Oakland. On the surface, East Oakland appears ready for such community-based efforts as well. There are certainly enough environmentally-related problems and issues to work around.

* A 2008 study of health disparities in Alameda County (“Life And Death By Unnatural Causes“) found that life expectancy in the flatlands is four years less than in the surrounding hill areas (about 73 to 79 years) and 10 years less than in some portions of the county. Researchers attributed some of that disparity to “toxic neighborhoods,” or “areas with high levels of air pollution, such as freeway interchanges, railways and industrial toxic release sites.”

* In 2008, Communities For A Better Environment conducted a study that concluded that particulate matter emissions are dangerously high in the southeasternmost section of the flatlands. The sudy said these emissions can be inhaled “deep into the lungs” and are linked to a number of adverse health problems, including aggravating asthma. The emissions were twice as high in the far end of the flatlands than they were in the hill areas.

* Diesel truck traffic, a significant cause of health-impairing emissions, is especially heavy in the flatlands. Last summer, Communities for a Better Environment counted more than 11,000 diesel trucks in the equivalent of four full days passing through the Hegenberger Road area surrounding the Coliseum Complex.

* The Los Angeles Times reported this week that a recent study by researchers working out of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health, the University of Southern California and other institutions determined that “Los Angeles residents living near freeways experience a hardening of the arteries that leads to heart disease and strokes at twice the rate of those who live farther away.” The study was the first to link heightened automobile and truck exhaust from the freeways to “the progression of atherosclerosis — the thickening of artery walls — in humans.”

One of the Bay Area’s most heavily-traveled freeways, Interstate 580, runs the length of the East Oakland flatlands, in some cases directly through the communities of Jingletown, the Fruitvale and Brookfield Village.

But two major differences between East Oakland and the other communities in the Toxic Triangle make grassroots environmental justice organizing much more of a challenge.

The first is that, unlike Bayview-Hunters Point, West Oakland and even Richmond, East Oakland is not a compact community with a core identity. The East Oakland flatlands are a sprawling series of individual neighborhoods with no common core, no common ethnicity and often no more connection than the throughways that run between them.

The second challenge is the scarcity of giant toxic targets to rally against. West Oakland has the abandoned toxin-strewn industrial plants, the port and the old Oakland Army Base. Richmond has the refineries and the leftover residue from the World War II-era shipyards. Bayview-Hunters Point has the old shipyards and industrial plants and the aging PG&E power plant. East Oakland’s environmental pollution comes from many sources; it’s as diverse as the number of drivers who use its freeway to cross the Bay.

But these challenges have not stopped environmental justice groups from making the effort. On Feb. 27, from 1 to 3 pm, Communities for a Better Environment will hold a “Climate Justice & Healthy Living” meeting at Tassafaronga Community Center on 85th Avenue. The agenda includes the question of how the impending global warming crisis will affect Oakland residents.

Meanwhile, the Toxic Triangle Coalition is taking its message to other parts of the area, with the second Toxic Triangle hearing scheduled for June 19 in Bayview-Hunters Point.

Not long ago, energy efficiency & conservation were considered the ugly step-brothers of environmentalism.  They were overshadowed by their sexier siblings–solar panels and wind turbines.

That has changed.  The topic of “Energy Efficiency and Community Participation” was discussed at the Clean Power, Healthy Communities Conference Wednesday.  The afternoon panel consisted of Tara Marchant, Program Manager of the Green Asset Program at The Greenlining Institute, Jodi Pincus, Exectuive Director of Rising Sun Energy Center, and Mark Toney, of The Utility Reform Network.

Marchant began the session by acknowledging that the most cost effective way of both creating jobs and saving energy has been too-long overlooked.  “For a long-time energy efficiency was ignored as the low-hanging fruit.”

Marchant pointed to opportunities for leveraging ARRA (Recovery Act) dollars for weatherization and energy efficiency programs and for defining local hire policies.  For example, that $185 million of the $5 billion for federal weatherization assistance has gone to California.  She gave examples of how over half million full-time jobs could be created with $500 billion in public-private investment for retrofitting, or maximizing ‘whole-home’ performance on 40% of our national stock by 2020.

“We need to be ready with these numbers in the AB 32 fight,” she said.  AB 32 (California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006) is the landmark bill that sets greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.

A section under AB32 (38565) requires that funds be directed when appropriate to the most disadvantaged communities in California, and those are also the ones most impacted disproportionately by pollution and climate change.

“It’s an amazing piece of wording for our communities” she said.

Sharing the spectacular concrete results of a pilot project 2 years ago of retrofitting 36 homes in one particular neighborhood, Marchant said, “We must always look at the metrics and use it to propel are argument forward.” she said.  “Now Biden is talking retrofitting and Obama is talking Cash for Caulkers.”

Jodi Pincus, Executive Director of Rising Sun Energy Center, spoke of their innovative programs that combine the 3 E’s–environment, economics, and social equity. She shared stories of some of the youth who have gone through their many programs. Their CYES (California Youth Energy Services) program provides youth with summer jobs that pays $9-10 an hour to conduct simple home energy upgrades (“green house calls”) and installation of CFLs, clotheslines, low-flow showerheads, and other green-home measures.  Last summer, the program operated in 3 counties and 10 cities in the Bay Area, employed 90 Youth Energy Specialists, and upgraded over 2,500 homes.

Two other programs Rising Sun offers are the Leaders-in-Field Training (LIFT) and Green Energy Training Services (GETS) for returning youth, which offer the opportunity to develop techincal and administrative skills and build viable careers paths in renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors.  Pincus is confident that within a year the jobs will open wide up because of existing and new rebates, tax credits & incentives, and shifts in the markets.  She calls the RSE model a “triple win” because it builds the workforce, the community, and the environment.  They are now forming affiliates across the country due to the success they are having.

Finally Mark Toney addressed what he called the weakest link in CA’s energy situation: the failure of California’s energy efficiency program.  Showing a slide depicting the relative energy savings in California from appliance standards, building standards, and utility energy efficiency programs, Toney pointed out that most savings have been from the first two, while energy efficiency has stayed fairly flat since 1995.  Further, he pointed out that PG&E’s heavily subsidized compact florescent lightbulbs (CFLs)—a signifcant component of CA’s energy saving’s plan–have the highest mercury content and are produced in Chinese factories powered by some of the dirtiest coal plants.

“They don’t even meet Wal-Mart’s standards,” Toney said.

He made an impassioned argument against the new Smart Meters that are en vogue and being installed quickly across California.  He said there are many concerns ranging from their safety to whether they work properly and shared a couple customer complaints that showed wildly fluctuating bills after smart meters were installed.

“The shell game doesn’t reduce carbon,” referring to the strategies of peak-load shifting and time-of-day pricing.  He said far more effective and far less expensive are simpler solutions like weatherization, reducing energy use, turning off powerstrips and appliances, and using clotheslines instead of energy-sucking dryers.

Toney ended his presentation with a provocative question, “In the ‘Meter Wars’, will you join the Utility Empire or the Consumer Jedis?”

California

Este año los latinos tenemos una oportunidad histórica para determinar el futuro del estado de California. Cualquier persona puede tomar parte en este esfuerzo, ¡y el momento de tomar acción es ahora mismo!

La aprobación de la Proposición 11 durante las elecciones de noviembre 2008 le dio a público por primera vez la oportunidad de redistribuir los distritos legislativos del estado. Este proceso es uno de los ejes secretos del mundo político de California, ocasionando muchas decisiones que afectarán su empleo, sus escuelas, y su comunidad.

El proceso de redistribución de distritos legislativos ocurre cada diez años como resultado del censo nacional. Antes de la aprobación de la Proposición 11, los políticos en Sacramento asumían la tarea de decidir cuales barrios formaban parte de sus distritos legislativos. Los residentes de cada distrito legislativo eligen un representante para la cámara legislativa en Sacramento quien sirve de promotor de los intereses de su distrito. Ya que los políticos pueden demarcar los limites de los distritos de donde vienen sus votantes: ¡Los políticos han estado básicamente escogiendo sus votantes!

Esto tiene consecuencias negativas para el público, pero mucho más para los latinos y otras minorías. Los políticos se han aprovechado de dos estrategias para minimizar la importancia de los votos latinos: 1) han podido dividir un barrio latino entre varios distritos legislativos para asegurarse que los latinos compusieran una minoría de cada uno; y 2) han concentrado todos los Latinos de un área en un distrito legislativo para aislar nuestros votos.

Ahora tenemos la oportunidad de ponerle fin a esta disolución de nuestros derechos, devolverle al pueblo el derecho de escoger los representantes mas adecuados para nuestras comunidades. La Proposición 11 estipula la creación de una “Comisión de la Redistribución de Distritos Legislativos” compuesta de miembros del público comunes y corrientes. Los comisionados serán responsables de designar los límites de los distritos legislativos, y de asegurar que el proceso de redistribución procede en una manera nítida y diáfana.

La escasez de latinos entre los comisionados amenaza el futuro de nuestras comunidades, robándonos de la oportunidad de tener representación adecuada en el gobierno estatal. Si los latinos no nos aprovechamos de la oportunidad que tenemos de fortalecer nuestra representación ¿quién hablará por nosotros? De por sí, aunque los latinos representamos el 36% de la población del estado de California, componemos tan solo 17% de los votantes activos.

El proceso para solicitar la posibilidad de ser un comisionado empezó en diciembre del 2008 y se acabará en febrero 2010. Hasta ahora menos de 1 de cada 10 candidatos son latinos. Si más latinos no aplican para ser comisionados es posible que cuando la comisión empiece su trabajo en 2011 que no habrá ni un latino entre ellos. Para poder funcionar bien, la comisión debe representar la diversidad del estado. La redistribución de distritos legislativos no puede fortalecer la comunidad latina en los ámbitos políticos si no hay latinos entre los comisionados.

Para más información, y para aprender como puede participar, visite www.greenlining.org y haga clic en “Our Democracy.”

Orson Aguilar es el director ejecutivo del Greenlining Institute.