On the issues: Candidates for CA Senate District 6, Roger Niello and Paula Villescaz

The following interview was conducted by members of The Sacramento Bee Editorial Board and the two leading candidates for the District 6 State Assembly seat, former Republican Assemblyman Roger Niello and San Juan Unified School District school board member Paula Villescaz. It has been edited for length and clarity.

The Sacramento Bee: Can you introduce yourself and tell us why you’re running?

Niello: I am an automobile dealer by vocation, a politician by avocation. I spent 25 years in the retail automobile business with the Niello Company auto group, of which I am still a co-owner and corporate director. My first profession was in public accounting. So I’m a Certified Public Accountant, though retired from that profession. After 25 years of running car dealerships, I went into politics for six years on the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors and then six years in the State Assembly. It turned out I’d been away from the dealership operation long enough that I didn’t reenter it. Operationally, though, I’m still obviously very connected. But in the 10 years since I termed out I’ve been on a number of nonprofit boards, mostly higher education and economic development related. And for three years, I ran the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, and then was hired to run an agency for El Dorado County. So I have what many people might say is a rather confused resume.

Villescaz: I have learned to be the next state senator for Senate District 6. I am, first and foremost, an advocate and a public servant, with an extensive background in the subject matters of public education, health care and emergency response. I’m running to protect and improve public education, to ensure quality access to health care for all Californians and all citizens of our state as well as to ensure all of our communities have a full and robust mental and behavioral health, economic and community response to COVID-19 that ensures that all of our communities are supported, moving from this devastating pandemic. Growing up, a little bit about me growing up, it was just my mom and I, and my mom finished the eighth grade before she had to drop out of her formal education to take care of her siblings. Raised by a single mom, I myself also joined the workforce as soon as I could, and have benefited tremendously and I’m a product of this community and this district, and of the school district that I’m so proud to serve now as a school board member. That’s the San Juan Unified School District. I became the first person in my family to graduate from college. I know firsthand that a strong public education system that meets the needs of all students is the key to succeeding and getting a piece of that American dream as we know it and achieving social mobility for a working class, such as mine. In addition to that, and because of that, I am proud to serve for the San Juan Unified School District Board of Education. I was elected in 2016 and reelected in 2020. And in my tenure, I have served two consecutive terms as board president for the school district, where we safely reopened schools and navigated the choppy waters of COVID. We passed Measure P, the largest facility bond on the ballot in 2016 to rebuild our aging schools. I’ve worked hard to increase access to rigorous programs for all of our students. In addition to that, I’m also a healthcare policy advocate. And this is another part of my story that’s personal — I am a cancer survivor. I went off to UC Berkeley, I believe that’s something me and my opponent have in common. While I was there, I was diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive cancer. That was the same spring that the Affordable Care Act was being debated. So because my life was on the line, I had to become a patient advocate for high quality access to health care. And that informs a lot of the work that I’ve done, and a lot of why a lot of these issues are my key issues and why I would like to represent the people of District 6.

The Sacramento Bee: The legislature has recently dropped a whole series of bills that were under consideration that would have created different sorts of vaccine requirements, including a mandate for schools to add COVID to the relatively long list of school vaccinations that are required. As a member of the legislature, what do you think the right approach is going forward? Do you think any vaccine or mask mandates are appropriate? And what else should the legislature be doing in terms of managing the pandemic going forward?

Villescaz: First and foremost, I want to acknowledge that the pandemic has not been easy for anybody, and I think we’re all ready to move beyond mask and vaccine requirements and get back to what we formally knew as normal. There’s a lot of pain with making it through a pandemic. However, we must move forward using an evidence- and science-based approach. I would support moving forward infrastructure and guidelines that are based in public health and sound science and accommodate the changing needs of local communities. We’re seeing spikes across the country and in other parts of the world. It’s not a static response anymore. That’s not what our communities need moving forward. We have to absolutely ensure that all of our communities — and the role of the legislature is to ensure that all of our communities — have the robust public health infrastructure to continue to support a COVID response to keep everybody safe, to keep our most vulnerable neighbors and our children safe. That is a complex kind of infrastructure that includes support for the mitigations that we know work, which includes testing. We have to maintain all of that infrastructure — like a muscle that we had been exercising — and make sure that it’s ready to exercise when the data determines that it’s necessary when we see an increase in spikes. That would be my approach and that approach, I believe, is appropriate for the legislature moving forward.

Niello: I think it was appropriate for the legislature to drop those bills because I think those decisions are really best made at the local level — cities, counties, school districts and the like. I don’t agree with those mandates being imposed on high by the state, and certainly not by the federal government. Nor do I think the state or the federal government should prohibit local governments from entertaining other things, certainly, as advised by public health entities of which each county has one. The need, though, does seem to be letting up. It has been a very frustrating roller coaster for sure. And we’re probably not done with it. I’m not a public health expert, but it would appear to me that what’s happening is the variation of the virus, as it mutates, becomes arguably, more transmissible, but much more mild in terms of symptoms and frequency of hospitalization and the like. So the need for masking and vaccines is certainly nowhere near as acute as it was before. I am a vaccine proponent. I’ve been vaccinated twice and boosted, though I did get COVID just before I was boosted and it was last fall and it was extremely unpleasant. But I’ve had family members who have had it since and in some cases they almost didn’t know they had it outside of testing — supporting what I just said about it being maybe more transmissible, but more mild. So we seem to be headed in the right direction from that standpoint, and I’m relieved but cautious.

The Sacramento Bee: Let’s talk about drought and wildfires. Over the past year, CapRadio has reported on several ineffective wildfire prevention policies under the Newsom administration that have failed to deliver on the sort of scale California needs to alleviate the risk of burning. So I’m wondering what policies you would support to make the fire prone areas of our city in this district safer.

Niello: For the last 100 years, we’ve followed what seems to be now concluded as being rather misguided — every time a fire broke out in wildfire areas, we rushed to put it out. And so we developed a forest that, in many cases, is overgrown, and it’s going to take a lot of resources to thin out areas that are overgrown, and that can help reduce the intensity of wildfires. You mentioned water, and that is an extremely important issue. I’ve been very much involved in issues related to water supply and flood control. And by the way, don’t forget we still have flood risks here even though it’s hard to imagine that right now, due to the nature of rainfall in this area, alternating from way too much way too little. And we’ve not done a very good job of keeping up with our water supply. So intense forest management as well as increasing our water supply for the sake of the supply but also for the sake of retention because it’s still a risk long term.

Villescaz: In terms of fire risks and fire management, one key part to remember is there’s absolutely no doubt that every season seems to be a little bit worse than the past. The human toll, the toll on our communities just continues to grow and it’s something that I’ve seen from the ground up as a secretary for the Health and Human Services agency. I oversaw and coordinated the work of the department responsible for provisions of masks, air and shelter for a community in the event of a disaster — natural or otherwise. And like so many of our local jurisdictions, we are now in the business of frequently and almost on an annual basis providing that mask, air and shelter for communities. So it’s important to remember the direct human toll and the amount of investments that are necessary to truly make our communities prepared to address this because of the risk of fire and climate change. It’s not something that’s years out anymore. It’s at our doors and on our doorstep every single season. So making sure that we have the infrastructure necessary to meet the needs of communities and to ensure even basic evacuation at some of our most vulnerable communities. Those are some of the efforts and focuses I’ve been able to focus on as a professional wearing a variety of hats. The other piece is that forest management is complicated, and we only have control over so much. It has to be a cooperative agreement and relationship. A lot of this land is also managed by the federal government. And so it’s key that we’re working in cooperation at all layers of government to mitigate that risk moving forward. But first and foremost, my priority is making sure that we’re building resilience within our communities because that threat is real every single season and people are losing so much every single season.

The Sacramento Bee: Wildfires are obviously related to climate change. There’s been some back and forth in the legislature lately about gas consumption and gas prices, and a series of proposals to ease some of the pain people are feeling from gas prices. On the other hand, some critics think that easing gas consumption is not the best approach given the repercussions and burden from fossil fuels — warming the planet and fighting more wildfires. I’m wondering whether you support the efforts to either provide rebates or a gas tax holiday. What do you think? Do you think easing gas consumption and the pain of gas prices is the right approach?

Villescaz: I want to acknowledge the challenging decisions that people are making every single day. As someone who grew up in a household that struggled, I remember what it meant to have to choose between putting some money in the gas tank or not even filling it up. That wasn’t a luxury that we could afford. Putting some gas in the gas tank or paying bills or knowing which bills could go a little bit further behind on and still literally keep the lights on, so that pain is real and it is impacting families and pocketbooks every single day. In terms of the variety of the proposals that are currently on the table, I support the rebate to drivers. I think individuals and families need immediate relief from some of the confluence of events that we’ve seen that are raising prices and raising costs at the pump. However, I don’t think it should be available to everybody. I think if we were to kind of figure out the right dividing line here, I think it should be available to individuals who drive a gas car. They’re the ones that are paying the extra costs. But in focusing on this debate, we can’t lose sight of the bigger picture here which is that this is one solution to an immediate problem where we provide relief. But we absolutely must be the state that continues to lead the fight to curb climate change. We must continue to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and accelerate our de-carbonization to meet our 2030 climate goals. We must address these challenges as they come as they come along and really address the needs of our families every single day and concurrently address the big picture challenges because those parts are not going to go away.

Niello: From a larger perspective, the inflation that we’re seeing is extremely alarming. I remember the stagflation that we experienced back in the 1970s, and it was economically painful. And the solution to it was extremely economically painful as interest rates spiked. The prime rate spiked up to 20% and, as an automobile dealer that finances inventory, I certainly recall that. But the state really can’t do anything about inflation. It is definitely having an impact on everyday people’s lives, specifically with regard to gasoline prices. The gas tax holiday seems to me the best, most efficient and best targeted strategy. Rebates broadly to everybody really don’t make a heck of a lot of sense. The suspension of the gas tax provides relief where it’s most needed.

The Sacramento Bee: The legislature has struggled to make a dent in California’s vast housing shortage, and some local governments are even resisting the recently enacted law legalizing duplexes. What policies would you pursue to make it easier for Californians to live and work in the same community, in a home or apartment that they can afford?

Niello: The supply and price of housing is largely a marketplace issue. And builders will tell you the biggest challenges they have are fees that are required, as well as environmental restrictions. I have believed for a long time we need a serious reform of the California Environmental Quality Act, otherwise known as CEQA. We seem to nibble at it on specific projects like sports stadiums, which does not make a lot of sense to me. We need a more broad reform of that to make building more efficient and less expensive. The approaches from the state that mandate for local governments where things can and can’t be built, I think that’s kind of dangerous because not every community is the same and I think to provide legislative mandates from the state level that affects all communities the same has definite quality of life impacts that local governments still should have input on. The state can provide guidelines, but I think local governments — the counties and cities, especially — need to be the local land use authorities.

Villescaz: This is a significant challenge and one that’s going to be one of the landmark issues that we face immediately and in the coming years. And this is another issue that’s extraordinarily personal as well. Growing up, me and my mom were housing insecure. We were evicted often, and having to find the next place that we could afford to live was why I ended up going to many different elementary schools. That disruption that causes that insecurity is a significant challenge. We absolutely must build more and we have to find solutions that allow local governments to meet their needs at each locality, both the counties and the state. But it is a two way street. I think the state also should be ensuring a little bit more accountability to local jurisdictions here in Sacramento County — a prime example where a number of different jurisdictions have spent the last couple of years pointing fingers at each other. And the reality is that this is going to be something that requires everybody to come to the table with the solutions that work for their communities and to work hand-in-hand. So building more inventory is a key component to anything that addresses housing. We also have to do a lot on the production side to make sure that individuals who are currently housed don’t lose that housing. It’s one of the sad facts that the highest growing population of homeless individuals in our state — in the wealthiest state in the wealthiest nation — are individuals who are losing their housing. We must do more to support our senior population and all of our communities to maintain the housing that they have. It’s hard to separate housing and homelessness and I’m intentionally focusing on housing but they do go hand-in-hand. In addition to raising more inventory, making sure that that works for local communities, we have to do more to stabilize existing housing situations that we do have now to not create further instability for our communities.

The Sacramento Bee: I want to follow up on that question. Roger, you said that you’re firmly in support of local governments being land use authorities, which they certainly are but there is evidence that, as you said, CEQA is part of the problem in terms of creating the vast housing shortage we have. Most of the research on this subject says local government zoning and other restrictions are a huge part of what’s caused the housing shortage in California. The legislature’s efforts have, to some extent, focused on that. Do you think the legislature should have legalized duplexes? Do you think the legislature needs to do anything about zoning and planning restrictions?

Niello: I think that the state is moving in the direction of becoming overly prescriptive. I did say that the state can provide guidelines. But the reason that you see the resistance where you do from local governments is coming from actually the people that live near the projects. And if the state becomes overly prescriptive, then that’s going to be reflected by extremely dissatisfied attitudes of voters. And when that happens, sometimes people can overreact with regard to ballot initiatives and election moves and the like. So I think it’s just kind of dangerous for the state to impose prescriptive land use policies that are the same in San Bernardino County as they are in Los Angeles County as they are in Modoc County. And that appears to be the approach so far. I think that’s a dangerous one. The local governments still have to be land use authorities. But as I said, there can be guidelines from the state. And perhaps we need the local and state government officials to get together and talk about what might be a better and balanced approach that could work for quite different communities that we have throughout the state of California.

The Sacramento Bee: Paula, do you agree that the state has gone too far in being prescriptive and telling local governments what they ought to do on this subject? Or or does it need to go further in preventing them from obstructing the building of housing?

Villescaz: I mentioned in the outset that ensuring from the state level some level of accountability is absolutely key. So the answer there is a little in the middle. The fact of the matter is, they completely stay out of it. You’ll just get a kind of slight revision of the same thing we’ve been trying to do over recent years, and we know that it’s not working. So absolutely, the state should be playing a stronger role. Now, that doesn’t mean we tell communities exactly what to do, how many units to build, etc. That means you build the table of accountability and then give them the appropriate right to build and the infrastructure that works for each individual community. There is a balance here that says, ‘Yes, you must build out certain housing, but we’re not going to tell you exactly what it needs to look like so that local governments can meet their own needs at the same time.’

The Sacramento Bee: Here in Sacramento, we’ve seen a couple recent shootings. The debate over criminal justice reforms and increasing public safety is certainly top of mind for many voters right now. And there has been an increase in violent crimes over the last few years in Sacramento. But unfortunately, much of the political discourse revolves around ballot measures that address over-incarceration and misdemeanor crimes. What’s your view on this debate in California? And what policies would you introduce or support to ensure our criminal justice system is both fair and safe for the public?

Villescaz: First and foremost, while we’re on the topic, I want to acknowledge the violence we saw in Fair Oaks — it’s still a developing issue, but in a park that, during the day, is occupied by families. It was occupied by a large group of individuals and it devolved into significant violent crime, and that’s what we’re seeing time and time again. And it creates trauma for entire communities. We saw the shooting of course, downtown, and then prior to that, in February, there was another shooting. So there’s absolutely no doubt that crime is having a huge impact on our communities. Now in terms of solving crime, the key to crime is to understand its roots, and crime is primarily the outcome of multiple and deterring adverse social, economic and cultural family conditions. This includes poverty and various social environments. The way to stop crime is to invest in our communities and in our schools, which is why the work that I’ve done is so important and why I’ve dedicated myself to building strong communities and schools to meet the needs of our children and families. However, in particular — speaking to the crime that we’ve seen here in Sacramento County in recent days, including last night — we must go further than that. That’s no longer enough. We also have to stop access to any availability of illegal guns and we must get them out of the hands of criminals and gangs. And we have to support law enforcement in doing so. Now, you included a question around propositions and I think propositions create a governance challenge because once they’re passed, only through the will of voters can they be retracted or revised in any single way. And that’s had a lot of adverse impacts from budgeting to now this confluence of events around what we’re seeing of this mixture of both Prop. 47 and Prop. 57. I do believe that, like most propositions, they have flaws, and I also believe in second chances. But both of those propositions could benefit from some revisions.

Niello: I think a good deal of the problems that we’re seeing are due to the two propositions — 57 and 47. They were passed by the voters, but I think a lot of voters didn’t fully understand what they were authorizing. Proposition 57 allows for the credits that we saw that were granted to one of the people involved in the shootings downtown, where he had an original 10 year sentence and he was out after four or five. Your paper pointed out that he wasn’t released early. But that’s somewhat semantics because of the credits that he received, which is a system which is quite liberal because of those credits. He was released early — before 10 years. I believe in second chances too, but third, fourth and fifth chances are going a little bit too far. And that individual is a good example of allowing too much leniency. He should not have been out of jail. That needs to be reformed. And if we have to go back to the voters to do it, then we have to go back to the voters to do it. Proposition 47 increases the threshold for misdemeanor versus felony penalties. Combined with liberal district attorneys that we have in San Francisco and Los Angeles who aren’t interested in prosecuting those misdemeanors, we’ve seen spikes in the so-called smash-and-grab robberies in those areas, certainly more so there than then in other areas. And we absolutely have to have strong law enforcement, particularly with regard to gang activity. I was shocked by that incident in our community. I live in Fair Oaks. And it appears very strongly that that was gang activity. And clearly, gangs were involved in that horrible situation downtown. We need strong law enforcement to target gangs and attempt to control them before incidents like that take place. We need a combination of strong, proactive law enforcement, as well as some reforms to change the laws that have taken place in the last couple of years, including going back to the voters to modify things that they have approved, perhaps in a misguided way. Just find a follow-up on that.

The Sacramento Bee: Paul, you mentioned keeping guns out of the wrong hands. The state does have more gun laws than most and tougher gun laws than most. But the legislature did kill an excise tax on guns that was proposed last year that would have dramatically increased funding of violence prevention programs and was supported by a lot of people who are concerned about gun violence. As a legislator, would you support an excise tax on guns? What are other policies to improve gun safety?

Villescaz: Specific to the excise tax, I think you’d be setting up a similar group we call a sin tax, like the gas tax or the tobacco tax, where behavior that we’re trying to decrease is generating income, and that’s how we’re funding key programs to support victims of crime in our environment. So first and foremost, we should fund that outright, it should not be dependent on any kind of tax. Those are services that we recognize are necessary for our communities. The fact of the matter is we have a surplus. So why tie it to those other components of that specific provision as we’re seeing more and more use of parts of ghost guns and moving components around creating illegal gun parts? The increase in gun violence, I believe, even with our strong backlog, is due to an increase in availability of weapons. And I don’t think that necessarily gets to the challenges. We have to regulate the ghost guns, we have to increase enforcement when these guns and gun parts and gun components that create violence in our communities end up in the hands of criminals and gangs. And we also have to outright fund and support our communities and the services that they need.

Niello: California has plenty of public revenues. A survey was just taken where people generally feel they’re overtaxed anyway, and I happen to agree with those sentiments. We have extremely high taxation in California, both personal as well as business, on the income side. High sales taxes. We have the revenue to fund sensible public safety programs. A budget is a statement of priorities. And if we don’t have that, then it’s not a priority. Unless we put an excise tax on guns, that doesn’t express the priority particularly well. California does, as you mentioned, have extremely strict gun laws. I suspect what happened downtown was largely people possessing guns who are not supposed to possess guns. There are specific examples of that, but I would suspect that probably every single one of them falls under the category of either being possessed by someone who’s not supposed to have a gun under California law, or a gun itself that is illegal under California law. So I’m not sure how many more laws we can pass to avoid that particular problem. We do need very strict enforcement of the gun laws that we have.

The Sacramento Bee: Over the past two years, disagreements and debates over COVID mandates and prevention measures have been on full public display, perhaps nowhere as clearly as school board meetings, city council and board of supervisors meetings. You’re running against a physician who’s perhaps best known for showing up at school board meetings to tell families he’d give out medical exemptions to mask mandates, no questions asked. What do you believe your responsibility is, if elected, to begin to mend some of these community tensions? And how would you go about repairing some of the relationships that have broken down at these local levels?

Villescaz: As a sitting school board member, I had a lot of reflections on the questions that you just posed, and there’s absolutely no doubt that serving on the school board has been one of the toughest places in government. I think the more local you get, the closer you are to people. And that’s the part that I love about that service. But the vitriol certainly ramped up in the last couple of years. I think it’s fair to say that I wasn’t quite expecting everything that’s happened in the last six years. However, it was absolutely my honor and privilege to wake up every single day and fight on behalf of my community, for our children. To keep them safe, and to give them the strongest environment possible to do what everybody in education wants our children to do, which is to come ready to learn, to connect with their community, to be empowered and, ultimately, to succeed. Now, I know from experience, that yes, there are groups who feel very, very strongly about it. I’m gonna call them anti-vaxxers. The people who have strong feelings don’t always show up at our school communities, and by being out in the community and engaging often with folks who didn’t necessarily always agree with me, but where we have the same interests of providing for our community, I worked hard to build those bridges. Now, there are still challenges, and anybody who’s governed at all, especially in the last six years, maybe didn’t always get it right. But I still showed up every day and said, ‘My goal is to protect and provide for the best interest of my community.’ Having that conversation in the community, in coffee shops, with voters, directly. I think, ultimately, people want leadership, particularly during the pandemic. Folks wanted individuals who came ready to responsibly govern, and that’s what I did every single day and I’m proud of that work, even if it was a challenge.

Niello: I’ve noticed that individual frustration with things just generally has become extremely acute in the last couple of years, beginning with the pandemic. One only needs to go out and drive on our freeways and you experience that. Now, that might sound somewhat unrelated to how you expressed the question, but I think it’s very related. People have become just frustrated with things. And like I say, I really see that on the road, but it’s also why I’ve maintained that the vaccine and mask mandates and things like that need to be addressed at the local level, not at the state or the federal level. Because people get frustrated when they think they have no influence. I served in local governments, I was on the board of supervisors, and trust me, I sat through plenty of public hearings where people were yelling and screaming at me and my colleagues, sometimes specifically at me. People can get awfully abusive in situations like that, and it’s because they feel relatively powerless. And the higher up you make decisions and things like that, the more powerless they feel. I think that’s driven a lot of that. So again, I think those issues need to be addressed at the lowest level of government possible, and it’s important for elected officials to reach out to people and then meet with them individually. People say absence makes the heart grow fonder, familiarity breeds contempt. Familiarity creates better relationships. So the frustration has been fed by the pandemic, fed by people feeling they don’t have any power over things. Bringing things down to as close to the local level as possible helps, and reaching out to people to discuss things can help to do that.

The Sacramento Bee: The California Public Utilities Commission has been considering a reform of the rooftop solar program which provides pretty healthy subsidies to promote rooftop solar. Utilities have been pushing for reform of that subsidy, and their stated reason is that it’s penalizing lower income ratepayers, although some of their critics think maybe they’re not too thrilled that people other than them, namely, the owners of rooftop solar, are generating electricity in their own right. They don’t like that kind of competition. Where do you stand on the subject of this subsidy and whether it needs to be reformed? What kind of reform would be appropriate?

Niello: I’ve always had issues with that because it is somewhat regressive. I remember somebody presenting this to me when I was in the assembly and I said, ‘You know, this program carried to its fullest extent would mean everybody has rooftop solar and everybody was selling excess power back at retail rates. That’s not a sustainable model.’ And his response to me was, ‘Well, not everybody is going to be able to afford to put up rooftop solar in the first place.’ So it kind of proves the point to me that it is regressive. And the further it goes, the less sustainable it is. So I haven’t really been supportive of that particular plant. Rooftop solar is fine for people who can afford it and want to save their electric bills by not drawing on the grid. With regard to climate control, I think we need to spend a lot of time figuring out how to address the effects, as well as try to reduce the cause. And we’re spending, I think, more time on trying to reduce the cause as opposed to adapting to the effects.

Villescaz: This certainly has huge implications moving forward on how we build all our power into our entire renewable portfolio across the state with significant implications. We have to be able to keep the lights on at all points of the day. And we’ve seen through Public Safety Power Shut-offs and other events that that’s not always the case. Now, we are fortunate, of course, to live in SMUD territory here and have a utility provider that has stepped up to this challenge in pretty big ways. And I’m proud to have the unanimous support of the entire board. They’ve shifted their focus because rooftop solar created an excess solar power that we can’t capture. We don’t have the ability to capture it right now. So transitioning that and shifting the battery incentives is absolutely critical to make sure that we maintain and capture the energy that we do have. And they also did acknowledge that the previous subsidies that highly incentivized the cost to either build out solar power from the beginning was very one-sided, it largely benefited wealthy white people. As the market became flooded with solar power, then the cost came down. However, SMUD maintained its rate at 12 cents per kilowatt hour. Now because of the infrastructure, they could actually get away with paying three cents per kilowatt hour for utility grade energy, and that’s a difference of nine cents. It’s now spread among all ratepayers, regardless of whether or not they have that solar infrastructure and are benefiting from it. That’s inherently unfair. So using the principles, continuing to build out this important tool and resource fairness and rates and stability in the grade, which is a key one — I’ve supported SMUD’s move to their net energy metering rates. Their version was to modify the rate per kilowatt hour that they will pay, and a difference between the last version of CPUC, which was a flat rate. I’m proud of the work that our local utility has done in really leading the state in this critical issue, and I’ll continue to rely on these experts moving forward.

This story was originally published May 27, 2022 at 6:00 AM.