Just ten months after AES submitted their plan to build a new power plant in Redondo, our City Council took the bold and decisive action to invite in the power regulating agencies so the Council can understand the process of power plant permitting… in April.
And just a mere five months after asking the City Attorney what Redondo’s options would be and over a year after Councilman Brand made a motion to study these options, our forward leaning City Council asked the City Attorney to present their options… in April.
And then only three months after residents submitted a No Power Plant lawn sign for approval by the city, the City Attorney committed to have an opinion… in April...after he deals with the absolutely critical remote bingo issue.
Despite giving AES hours in November to present their case for a new power plant, our pro-resident City Mayor and three of the four Councilmen present, then made passionate arguments against hearing from the State Coastal Conservancy’s independent consultant until … some later date to be determined…maybe, they’re not sure yet.
Oh, did I mention that this consultant is the independent power expert who concluded that the is no longer needed?
BUT, Mayor Gin said if the Coastal Conservancy consultant gets to speak, the City must give equal opportunity to AES. Really? Didn’t AES already speak for three hours in November? Where was the fair opposition representation at that meeting? The three minutes a resident gets? Is that equal time to a multi-hour power point presentation? Really????
In fact, Councilman Matt Kilroy, ignoring five corroborating state reports and a second independent consultant’s affirmation of the first consultant’s findings, began to critically attack the consultant’s findings… without setting a date to even hear the consultant’s response.
Where is Councilman Kilroy’s critical assessment of the multiple hour AES brief? You know, the one where AES suddenly revealed the power plant would be half the size of what they submitted in their plan to the state. The one in which they show the new plant closer to Catalina Avenue, just tens of feet from offices and across the street from a neighborhood. The one where AES said 35 foot tall buildings would hide their 80 foot tall new power plant from public view. The one where they claimed the new power plant would only run at 15.6 percent of capacity after spending over half a billion dollars to build it… or was that 25 percent run time, or was it 30 percent run time???? Who knows, they used all three figures during their presentation… The presentation where AES stated they would rebuild their half billion dollar new plant in just two years… contradicting the 9 years they show in the plan they submitted to the state and the seven years they project to rebuild their Huntington Beach plant. Why is Kilroy attacking the consultant who shows we don’t need the power plant while giving the AES dog and pony show, riddled with contradictions, a free pass????
It does not take a rocket engineer to see what is going here. Stretch it out… Make motions like you are really doing something… Attack, ignore, or denigrate the city, state and federal evidence that supports eliminating our unneeded, blighting, polluting power plant…
Meanwhile, despite claims from Councilman Aust, AES is forging ahead. You can find their correspondence with the California Public Utilities Commission on the web asking to accelerate the contracting process. They have telegraphed their intent to file their application for a new plant to the California Energy Commission sometime between April and June. Good thing our City officials will understand the process after it is already well in motion.
The power plant will be a done deal by the time this council gets around to voting on any substantive action…if they ever get there at all. Is that City Council inefficiency, ineptitude, or malfeasance…? You decide.
The Council Meetings are nothing more than a show. Our Council will not represent us. They ridicule us privately and publicly. It is obvious; the ONLY viable recourse for residents who oppose the power plant is to take matters into our own hands. If we don’t want a new power plant, we must phase it out by a resident ballot initiative.
BBR and NoPowerPlant are moving forward on this ballot initiative…but we need your financial support. If you are against the power plant, put your money where your mouth is…. You can contribute at www.nopowerplant.com. It’s the best investment you can make in our city’s future.
