GREG GARTRELL WROTE AN INTERESTING, BUT INACCURATE, column in The Herald last week regarding the Community Sustainability Commission. Having been on the commission since its inception, I believe that several of his points are well taken. The commission as a whole has felt the need to better explain its rationale for recommending the funding of certain grant applications and not others. This has been discussed at recent meetings. We realize that our recommendations need to be more fully explained to the City Council and public. In the future we may do both oral and written explanations in addition to our scoring.
Currently the commission uses a rubric to score the grants that considers not only water or greenhouse gas savings, but also whether the goals are quantifiable; the project’s public outreach and ability to educate; collaboration with other community groups; whether the grant will leverage other money; and the experience of the applicant. All of these requirements were arrived at during the commission’s meetings with full opportunity for public participation. They are part of the grant application process and our scores were presented to the Council. All of the criteria used are readily available to the public. By looking at the scores, one can see how we felt about each applicant in each category and whether we trusted their numbers. The criteria are extensively discussed at the grant recommendation meeting.
Mr. Gartrell is correct that the commission did not recommend for approval the grant application with the biggest water and greenhouse gas savings. He does not mention that that grant was from Valero. This application scored well on water savings, but not on any of the other criteria. In addition, this project for over $800,000 would have paid for itself in a year. The commission did not feel it was appropriate to fund what could only be called a good business investment for a multibillion-dollar corporation. Valero would have had to have no business sense whatsoever to have not done this project on its own without any help from settlement monies that it was providing the people of Benicia pursuant to the settlement of a potential legal action.
The commission itself put forward a grant application for water conservation projects that would have directly helped the people of Benicia save water. Many of the recommendations and much of the research came directly from Benicia’s Urban Water Management Plan. Contrary to what Mr. Gartrell states, the commission did not propose that there would be 8,000 low-flow toilets or washer rebates given every year, but rather that there are 8,000 households in Benicia that could potentially be served by this grant, with 15 percent taking advantage of the plan in the first year. This is not unreasonable given that Benicians have cut water use by 22 percent without any incentive. That application can be found on the city’s website under the CSC agenda for May 19, 2014. The Council did not approve this grant.
There is an interesting history behind this grant application. When the Valero/Good Neighbor Steering Committee settlement agreement was amended in May 2010, it provided that Valero would receive a credit of $1,600,000 for the Condensate II project if funds had not been used for other water conservation projects. The commission for four years repeatedly asked the city to come forward with projects. Nothing happened until the last grant cycle, when the city proposed water saving projects costing a total of $219,000. The commission felt strongly that the money from the agreement should be used for the general public and not go back to Valero. That is why the commission did its own water conservation grant request.
Mr. Gartrell contends that the commission did not give priority to water conservation projects and did not make the findings required by the agreement. That is not true. The agreement does not require that all projects be for water conservation. If they aren’t, the commission must make findings. The commission has done this for every grant application it has recommended. During the last grant cycle several water conservation grants were proposed. There had only been one other water conservation grant ever proposed to the commission before this, and it was recommended for funding.
The commission recommended that $1,300,000 (subtracting $300,000 for the previously funded water project) of water conservation projects be funded from the Condensate II monies, including its own grant request. Valero believed it had fulfilled the contract’s requirements and was entitled to the $1,600,000. The commission, the Good Neighbor Steering Committee and the city attorney disagreed with this contention. At the Council meeting the baby was split in half. At the suggestion of Councilmember Alan Schwartzman, the Council awarded Valero $829,000 for its grant on the condition that it release its claim to the $1,600,000, which it did. One grant the commission recommended in the amount of $200,000 (BRIP) had minimal water savings. That grant received $500,000 from the Council.
The commission has always strived to ensure that the settlement monies benefit the people of Benicia. We would welcome more public input. Our next meeting is Jan. 26 at 6 p.m.
Kathy Kerridge, J.D., has lived in Benicia for 29 years. She graduated from the University of Michigan and Hastings College of the Law. She practiced law for 19 years prior to teaching elementary school.
Sharing is caring!
Kathy thanks very much for clarifing you and the commissions anti big business stance. We now all know the the CSC is very anti big business.
Since this is a response to my op-ed I will make just a few remarks to correct the record. The author claims that the CSC application for water conservation claimed the 15% and 30% savings from the program was not water savings but the number of participants, even though those numbers were in the column whose heading is “Water and energy savings in one year”. In the next column for the first year savings is a claim that 220,778,730 gallons would be saved, which is about 15% of the total city treated water use in a year. So that 15% was clearly a claimed water savings not the penetration rate now claimed by the author. It is an absurdly high claim by any fair measure. When I pointed this out to the CSC, the response was that the number was a “WAG”. Yes it was.
There is simply not enough money in the grant to achieve that by the means to be used in the grant (toilet, washer replacement and “cash for grass”). The 22% savings this past summer came from letting lawns go brown and habit changes (shorter showers for example) and any reasonable calculation of what can be expected from the CSC program is far less than 15%. That is not to say the CSC program is bad or shouldn’t be funded; however my assessment that the savings were grossly overstated is correct. Trying to change the 15% to a penetration rate for the program when the numbers in the application clearly show it was a claimed 15% savings is not useful
Yes there were a number of categories for evaluation as the author states. Only two were water and energy savings, as provided for in the agreement. However, there is no documentation as to how each category was to be used and it appears from the scores that different members scored in different ways. As far as the required findings are concerned, if the CSC made them I cannot find that documented anywhere. Perhaps the author can point them out; that would be helpful.
None of the categories was cost savings to the applicant, but the author seems to imply that criterion was applied to the Valero project. The author claims that Valero saves enough to pay for the project in a year, but I cannot duplicate that claim. Water savings per year for them are on the order of $100,000. Energy savings are more, but without knowledge of what Valero pays for natural gas I can only estimate that the payback period is between 2 and 5 years. Cost-savings would be a valid criterion for cost-sharing for any project; unfortunately the CSC has not documented how or if they used that on any of the projects and it is only in the author’s statement above that it is claimed it was applied to Valero (I cannot find it in the CSC documentation on the grants). As I have stated previously, a cost-share should have been applied to Valero, but only if it is a criterion that is uniformly applied. There is still a good reason to fund such projects: the water saved becomes available to the citizens of the city, and they benefit as well (that fact seems to have been overlooked by many).
This gets back to my main point: if the CSC would only document what they do, get Council buy-in when they apply categories not specifically included in the agreement, and carefully evaluate projects, they could avoid the problems that occurred. It should have been done in the beginning. It needs to be done before the next round is started. I hope the CSC will do it.
Greg Gartrell
Thanks Kathy, keep up the good work. If Bob Livesay is against it, it must be the right thing to do.
Hank it has nothing to do with me. I advise to read Greg Gartwell comment. Learn something. By the way did you donate that $500.00 to the mayor yet. What we are seeing is the spiral down fall of the Mayor and the CSC,. They will not be able to stop it. I have asked many times for proof and info on their Enviro Greenie stuff. Guess what, nothing. I asked for proof on GHG on MCE, guess what silence.