The Sacramento City Council approved a program Tuesday night that opens the door to $100 million worth of energy-saving retrofits at office buildings around the city.
City officials said the arrangement, part of a national effort launched by British billionaire Richard Branson's nonprofit Carbon War Room group, will create 1,150 jobs.
Santa Rosa-based Ygrene Energy Fund will oversee the program, providing low-cost retrofitting loans to property owners through a line of credit from banking giant Barclays Capital. Those property owners will repay the loans through property tax assessments; energy savings created by the retrofits will more than cover the loan payments, officials said.
There is no financial risk to the city associated with the arrangement, which creates a Property Assessed Clean Energy district in the city, officials said.
"We want Sacramento to be on the map for what we're doing in the green economy," Mayor Kevin Johnson said earlier in the day.
Councilman Kevin McCarty – who spearheaded bringing the program to Sacramento and has proposed expanding it to residents – said city officials "think we can really be a leader on this."
Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, said the program gives Sacramento an opportunity to "demonstrate the power of investing in our growing clean energy sector."
"I support this innovative proposal and hope it will inspire more private – and public – investments in the green energy industry and help reignite our local and national economy," she said.
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "Report Abuse" link below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.
What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com
Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can't play nice. (See our full terms of service here.)
Here are some rules of the road:
• Keep your comments civil. Don't insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the "Report Abuse" link to notify the moderators. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior.
• Don't use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don't say anything in a way you wouldn't want your own child to hear.
• Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.
• Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand.
• Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.
• Don't repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.
• Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That's spam and it isn't allowed.
• Don't use all capital letters. That's akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.
• Don't flag other users' comments just because you don't agree with their point of view. Please only flag comments that violate these guidelines.
You should also know that The Sacramento Bee does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the "Report Abuse" link to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at feedback@sacbee.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won't and vice versa.
If you submit a comment, the user name of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them.
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "Report Abuse" link below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.