Dear solar supporters,

Thank you for all of your support and advocacy for the San Francisco Solar Incentive Program to date. The program has not been approved by the Board of Supervisors yet, but we are getting closer to that finish line.

This coming Tuesday, June 3, at their 2pm regularly scheduled meeting, the Board of Supervisors will take action to support or reject the solar program. The budget committee has actually forwarded three separate proposals to the full Board for a vote on Tuesday:

1) Advocates’ solar rebate proposal: This proposal, supported by the Mayor and Assessor Ting and the full range of the environmental community, has had seven hearings at the Board. As you know, it would provide between $2-5 million per year to fund solar incentives ranging from $3,000-$6,000 for residents, up to $10,000 for businesses that install solar and up to $30,000 for non-profit affordable housing. (Revenues come from the PUC power revenues– not from the City’s General Fund that goes to fund health care, police, etc.) Supervisor Dufty has signed on as sponsor of this legislation and we are advocating strongly for passage of this version of the program. Supervisor Dufty is a key ally in this effort and we are grateful for his support.

2) Supervisor Mirkarimi’s solar proposal. Rather than the full program, it creates a one-year pilot program. This program reserves $325K for affordable housing developers, for $325K for limited income households, and $750K for multi-unit and single family residential buildings. No funding is provided for commercial buildings or the greater non-profit community, thus defeating the purpose of making the incentive available to all of San Francisco’s 195,000 rooftops. Considering the pent-up demand for solar incentives over the last several months, we are concerned that the $750K for residential buildings will be used up quickly and we will back before the Board asking for more funding in a matter of weeks.

3) Supervisor McGoldrick’s solar ordinance. This ordinance prioritizes how PUC funding will be spent on solar installations, and effectively prohibits funding for incentives to local residents and businesses to install solar. This ordinance reserves all funding for publicly owned projects and non-profit housing. Considering the urgency of increasing our local renewable energy portfolio, this ordinance greatly limits funding to a very small portion of San Francisco’s rooftops that could install solar.

Considering that this is the last shot at the Board of Supervisors for approval of the program, please consider emailing, calling, or visiting the Board members and ask them to vote on the legislation that is the product of our collective efforts over the past year and a half. Their contact information can be found here:
http://www.sfgov.org/site/bdsupvrs_index.asp?id=7271

When you do, please ask them to vote yes on the full program sponsored by Supervisor Dufty. And if you talk to Supervisor Dufty, please thank him for his sponsorship. There will be no opportunity for public comment on the proposals on Tuesday at the full Board (each has already received public comment at committee), so your feedback to the Board this week and early next week will be critical. We do encourage you to come to the meeting on Tuesday to be a visible presence supporting solar.

Thank you very much for your continued advocacy.

Office of Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting
City and County of San Francisco

So much good work was submitted and a great deal of effort was put into this 1BOG logo project. We want to thank each and everyone for making this a really exciting start and as a token of our sincere gratitude we would like to offer a couple of things to those who participated.

1/ if you have a link to your work/portfolio/bio, please send it to me; we will post it along with your name and entry.

2/ we are printing some caps and shirts with the new logo, if you are interested in receiving a free 1BOG t-shirt or a baseball hat please send me your mailing address so I can mail these out. Give us a couple of weeks to get it done.

Thank you!

sylvia@1bog.org

Choosing a winner has not been an easy process because there were so many really good concepts to consider. We narrowed it down to a short list and now we have to pick a winner. So CONGRATULATIONS to Mick Hanks for his 1BOG logo!

Hi everyone: we are overwhelmed by the volume and quality of submissions and need to take another day to review the latest entries. Please accept our apologies, we’ll announce the winner tomorrow end of day. Sylvia

entries deadline is still today May 15th 12:00 NOON. thank you.