The Hermosa Beach City Council Tuesday night approved a plan to repair the Community Center’s aging roof and install solar panels in the process, once again exposing divisions over the relationship between infrastructure improvements and measures designed to reduced greenhouse gas emissions in the city.
The 4-1 vote, with Councilmember Carolyn Petty dissenting, approves $294,000 contract to repair the roof, and a $221,682 contract to install solar panels. The latter figure does not include a donation of some solar panels from MC Global, the company laying undersea fiber optic cable off the Hermosa coast, which is expected to reduce the cost by about $15,000.
According to Mayor pro tem Jeff Duclos, the city first began considering putting solar panels on the Community Center roof as far back as 2005. Roof repairs at the community center have also been studied for several years. In February, the city approved emergency roof upgrades to the portion of the center covering the Community Theater. Doing both at the same time would create construction efficiencies and save money.
But Petty and several residents wondered whether the tail was wagging the dog. Changes in the way California utilities treat solar produced by individual consumers are scheduled for July 1, causing skeptics to wonder whether the desire to install solar panels ahead of the deadline, and lock in different rates, was causing staff to urge a premature repair of the roof when it may still have several years of life left.
A recently completed examination indicated that repairs to the roof were urgent, but Petty and some residents noted that a previously commissioned study had indicated that several years worth usable life remained.
“My number one goal is operational efficiency,” Petty said. “I want to make sure that’s not being trumped by ideology.”
Ben Lochtenberg, a Hermosa resident who has worked in the solar industry for about 15 years, said that there was value in installing the panels as soon as possible. Even if there was some amount of life left in the roof, he said, the years that it remained without panels represented a lost investment opportunity.
The solar panels will generate electricity that could be used to meet the needs of the Community Center and, potentially, adjacent city facilities along the Green Belt. They are expected to pay for themselves in 10 to 15 years, according to city staff.
The reason for the variation is the changing statewide approach to solar energy. The current Net Energy Monitoring regime, known as NEM 1.0, does not penalize those with solar panels when the energy they generate exceeds their usage. NEM 2.0, approved by the California Public Utilities Commission and set to go into effect July 1, will add a surcharge to send that energy back onto the grid. If the panels on the roof are completed after June 30, they will fall under NEM 2.0.
Opponents of the project pointed out that it was possible that the needed repairs to the Community Center roof would be more extensive than anticipated, and that, even with Tuesday night’s approval, the city could still miss the deadline.
The remaining council members, however, did not view the two-to-four-year difference in roof-life estimate, or the potential difference in return-on-investment duration, as significant enough to overcome other considerations. Councilmember Hany Fangary noted that the earlier study came before this winter’s record-setting rains, which prompted the February repairs of the segment covering the Community Theater. And Councilmember Stacey Armato, looking at a picture of the existing roof, was dismayed at the use of a type of foam to patch a potential leak.
Ultimately, the four who voted in favor said they were swayed by a desire to avoid a patch-job approach to the city facilities. Such a strategy by previous councils has left the city with a looming infrastructure bill. During discussion over a sewer fee earlier in the evening, itself a point of disagreement, various council members said the total figure for upgrades approached $100 million. And Mayor Justin Massey said that the existing roof also made for inefficient uses of staff time; he noted that in a rainstorm this year, city staff were occupied placing buckets in various parts of the Community Center.
“This moves us from a band-aid approach … to a comprehensive solution,” Massey said.
