High electric bills catch Redondo by surprise
by Garth Meyer From $50 to $195, $43 to $139, $67 to $147; reports of booming Southern California Edison bills spread through Redondo Beach in January. Mayor Bill Brand told the city council that his went from $60 to $157 in a month. Southern California Edison increased rates 8.9 percent last October and another 2.9 percent Jan. 1, with approval from the California Utilities Commission. But bills have increased significantly more. “This was driven by two factors,” SCE spokesperson Ron Gales said. “Urgent investment in reducing the risk of wildfire, and strengthening our reliability and energy storage (to avoid the August 2020 rotating outages).” Redondo city councilman Todd Loewenstein has been gathering reports of these higher bills. “Basically, they’re balancing their lack of wildfire preparation and deferred maintenance on grids on the backs of ratepayers,” he said. “They haven’t invested in infrastructure in decades. Now, who are they gonna ding for it?” city councilman Christian Horvath said. “They are gonna ding the customers.” Loewenstein has scheduled a meeting Feb. 15 with SCE government relations representatives, to include City Manager Mike Witzansky, Loewenstein and…
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