TO:
Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
THROUGH:
Mark Danaj, City Manager
FROM:
Tony Olmos, Director of Public Works
SUBJECT:Title
Report on Power Reliability and Southern California Edison’s Capital Improvement Program (Public Works Director Olmos).
RECEIVE REPORT
Line
_________________________________________________________
Recommended Action
RECOMMENDATION:
Receive report regarding Power Reliability and Southern California Edison’s Capital Improvement Program.
Body
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
There is no fiscal impact associated with this action.
BACKGROUND:
Within the past few years, residents and businesses in the City of Manhattan Beach have been subjected to an escalated amount of service disruptions related to the electrical service provided by Southern California Edison (SCE). Some of these are planned outages in order to make equipment repairs and the rest are unplanned outages caused by various factors. In any case, the service reliability provided by SCE to the Manhattan Beach community has been a source of concern for City’s residents, businesses, and visitors.
Since mid-2013, the City has taken several actions in an effort to improve power reliability in Manhattan Beach. On August 20, 2013, City Council directed staff to send a letter to the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) asking for their assistance. Councilmember Lessor, then Mayor, took an active role in communicating with other stakeholders and following-up with the PUC. As a result, Councilmember Lesser attended meetings with PUC President Michael Peevey on October 11, 2013 and on December 16, 2013. State Assembly Member Muratsuchi, SCE’s CEO, and other stakeholders also attended the latter meeting.
SCE was responsive to the City’s concerns and initiated construction on several large SCE Infrastructure Upgrade projects in 2014. The majority of these projects were completed in 2015, but there are still a number of projects that have yet to be completed. To continue addressing the issue of power reliability, City Council appointed Councilmembers Lesser and Powell in late 2015 to continue meeting with SCE staff and report back to City Council.
As a result, Councilmembers Lesser, Councilmember Powell and Public Works Director Olmos have met with SCE staff three times within the last 6 months. A wide range of topics were discussed including SCE’s proposed Capital Improvement Plan for the next 2 years. For the benefit of the City Council and the community, it was decided to have SCE staff present their proposed plan to the City Council.
DISCUSSION:
In late 2015, SCE management made significant organizational changes within their company, which has affected their Public Relations Division. Mr. Francisco Martinez has now been assigned to be SCE’s liaison to the City of Manhattan Beach. In the short time he’s been assigned to MB, Francisco has willingly listened to our concerns and expressed his desire to work closely with the City of Manhattan Beach to further improve communication and collaboration with the goal of improving power reliability.
For this item, SCE has prepared a PowerPoint presentation that will include the following main points:
1. Background
2. Review of the 2015 Circuit Reliability Report in MB
3. Review of SCE’s proposed 2016-2017 CIP
4. Review of the Completed El Porto Project
The PowerPoint is included as Attachment 1 and will be presented by SCE at the City Council meeting.
Attachments:
1. SCE PowerPoint Presentation