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San Luis Obispo City Council votes to phase out natural gas

September 4, 2019

Mayor Heidi Harmon

By JOSH FRIEDMAN

The San Luis Obispo City Council voted 4-1 Tuesday night in favor of an ordinance and energy policy that would ban the fitting of new residential and commercial buildings with natural gas-powered appliances.

On Jan, 1, 2020, the ordinance, which will require new construction to have only electric power, will go into effect. The city has provided developers two alternatives, they can transition an existing gas powered building into electric only or pay in-lieu fees.

Councilwoman Erica Stewart cast the lone dissenting vote against the ordinance, saying the city should be using a carrot, rather than stick, approach in order to encourage the switch to electric-powered appliances. Stewart also argued for a city discount incentive for developers opting to build developments that use electrical appliances.

Mayor Heidi Harmon, who has spearheaded the effort to end the use of natural gas appliances, said the city needed to “act” immediately. Meanwhile, Harmon blamed the fossil fuel industry for exacerbating the “climate crisis.”

“We have very, very little time to make this transition,” Harmon said. “We just have to know that the reason we’re in such a bad position is because the fossil fuel industry has been intentionally misleading us for decades with a multimillion dollar climate denial extravaganza that has unfortunately been quite effective.”

Tuesday’s meeting drew numerous speakers for and against the city’s attempt to phase out the use of natural gas. Critics say phasing out gas appliances will eliminate jobs and increase the cost of housing in SLO, which is already becoming increasingly unaffordable to local families and workers.

“There is no bigger threat to housing affordability than climate crisis and extreme weather,” Harmon said in response to critics. “It is the major, major affordable housing crisis multiplier, especially here in the state of California as we have seen with recent fires, mudslides and et cetera.”

In the lead-up to Tuesday’s meeting, Harmon was promoting the city energy policy changes in a video that features a Los Angeles Times article on pollution associated with gas appliances. Harmon did not explain in the video that the article referred to improperly vented gas appliances, as opposed to all gas stove usage.

The ordinance and energy policy will return to the council at an upcoming meeting, after city staffers make clarifications to the proposed rules.


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Gee, I thought San Luis Obispo was supposed to be a Welcome City but the mayor is showing her unwelcoming towards businesses that work, employ and sell natural gas. She is being educated by Bernie Sanders & AOC that the mayor says that the earth will end in 12 years if we don’t act now.


Since she won her natural gas plan last Tuesday night, she is now considering a ban on the cities propane buses to all electric buses, she wants to ban all gas lawn movers, ban home backup generators, ban plastic trash bags, ban propane grillers and etc.


The primary radical justification by the mayor and this progressive council is all the hype they believe on the Green New Deal by putting together a bogus plan that they say is necessary to slow the rise of human-caused climate change; which the mayor believes in congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez’s vision and other congressional liberals say will cause significant damage to the economy and human health over the next century.


Yet the mayor fails to admit that there have been many live recorded PhD environmental scientists who have spoken in Congress this year in congressional committee hearings with testimony there is no good evidence global warming will be catastrophic or that there’s anything humans can do to stop it. But even if the mayor and her council assumes that global warming must be slowed down with this ban on natural gas, the mayor trying this progressive model by following the Green New Deal by putting it into San Luis Obispo because she truly believes the sky is falling, would do nothing to achieve her goal but outrage residents instead because the evidence isn’t there. Remember, she was elected by mostly temporary residential students from Cal Poly or she wouldn’t have won her election, period. She also fails to admit that Cal Poly uses a lot of natural gas, a lot of it but she fails to admit Cal Poly’s need for natural gas.


8

Oxforduniversity wrote, “there have been many live recorded PhD environmental scientists who have spoken in Congress this year in congressional committee hearings with testimony there is no good evidence global warming will be catastrophic or that there’s anything humans can do to stop it.”


I wonder if Oxford can name one of these scientists. Even the scientists who work for the fossil fuel industry no longer deny that their products have a hand in the planet’s warming.


https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/fossil-fuel-companies-knew-about-global-warming


By the way, just for the record, I too am against what the SLO council has done here. It seems like over reach to me and I agree with Ms. Stewart that incentives to move away from natural gas would be far more effective, and cause less of an uproar in the community. But to simply deny that mankind and over 260 years of spewing carbon into the atmosphere is not responsible for the current changes in our climate is simply ridiculous.


-1

Did the Stalinist SLO Progressives, in their zeal for advancing a woman of color, miss that she might be capable of independent thought?


-8

What is she smoking??? Go back to Pasadena. She has done nothing but turn this town upside down. Electricity is so expensive! She does this but goes to the Noor clinic to get her glasses. None of the residents knew about this on purpose so we couldnt oppose. Nice and shady Mayor.


22

Will they now allow Diablo to remain operating as a ‘renewable’ energy source to power the electric appliances? Very curious… some people making big bucks de-commissioning to re-commission.


18

What is wrong with these people? They have lost their minds! How, how are we going to be able to handle the electrical demands? Will we have more rolling blackouts? Heidi Harmon is insane and so are her followers. I’m also wondering what she does with her China made flowers she wears? I hope they do not end up wrapped around a turtle somewhere!


24

I’m told her front yard is full of statues too! Better take those down like the ones downtown!


12

Is there a majority of residents in SLO that are in favor of this?….I find that hard to believe….I’m telling you SLO…you have got to find a way to force mind numbed Cal Poly students to vote in their home districts…you must stop them from voting in your town…they are here for 4 to 6 years only but their voting snafus remain here forever…they are ruining your city…..


37

Absolutely right!


26

100%agreed.I heard her mind was

Already made up and the reason we, the residents weren’t informed of this meeting is because they were trying to sneak it by us. They knew we would oppose. Shady!


23

Time to phase that old fossil gas bag out of the mayors office


28

Anen!


10

Kudos to Councilmember Erica Stewart for being the lone vote against this nonsense and for the right reasons. The rest of the Council are indoctrinated Chicken Littles crying “the sky is falling”. To quote the Bible “God forgive them for they know not what they do” but I won’t be forgiving them anytime soon.


And then Heidi and her Council appoints a Council Compensation Committee packed with her sycophants to consider a major pay increase for themselves. Now we will have to pay them more to destroy our fair town.


It’s time for all of us “unindocrinateds” to rise up and say “enough is enough’! These actions beg for a popular referendum to repeal them. Anybody with me?


43

Yes!!


13

I am


3

HH saving the earth one hot plate at a time.


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