Hi all, Last Tuesday, March 11, (though some of us the week before succeeded in getting a 7-4 vote to send the Mayor/SFPUC's solar grant program back to committee), Mayor Newsom and The SFPUC announced that they were proceeding with a 1 year pilot of the program anyway. They were joined in the announcement by former PG&E PR director Guillermo Rodriguez, who has just been appointed as head of the Mayor's City Build and 'Green Collar Jobs' programs, and who spoke about his role which will be supposedly bringing jobs to the Bayview Hunters Point through the solar program. The Mayor also said in the announcement that he thinks he has swayed at least two of the Supervisors who temporarily rejected the long term ten year version the program (which was what was sent back to committee) to reconsider on future votes, so the Mayor's maneuvers are still looming, and it is crucial that we get the Supes to only give a pass to the program with the firm condition that it must first be vetted through the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) in regard to its impact and interaction with the Community Choice Energy project (CCA). I would strongly recommend watching this particular Mayor's press announcement, because in it he and the other speakers very clearly reveal their overall strategy on this issue, and show that they are going to continue to ramp up their playing of the race card on this issue. You can see the video by going to: http://sanfrancisco.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=18 and clicking on Launch of Largest Municipal Solar Program in United States <javascript:void(0);> across from the 3/11/08 press conference date. CCA, which really -will- be the Largest Municipal Solar Program in the World within the next year, was of course never once mentioned once during the press conference... peace Eric -- "I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." -- Che Guevara