The Santa Clarita City Council revealed Tuesday that a letter had been sent to Southern California Edison to seek a solution for the repeated and often days-long Public Safety Power Shut-offs plaguing the community.

During the meeting, Mayor Bill Miranda revealed that the City Council has sent a letter to Stephen D. Powell, the president and CEO of Southern California Edison (SCE), expressing grave concerns and frustrations regarding the execution and management of recent public safety power shutoff (PSPS) events in the city of Santa Clarita and the greater Santa Clarita Valley.

The letter read as follows:

Mr. Powell, on behalf of the Santa Clarita city council, I’m writing to express our grave concerns and frustrations regarding the execution and management of recent public safety power shut-off PSPS events in the city of Santa Clarita and greater Santa Clarita Valley, and urge you To accelerate grid hardening to the Hillfield member and Python circuits,

Our community has experienced several PSPS events in the last 60 days that have impacted approximately 5,000 to 10,000 residents. Those connected to the Hillfield circuit, specifically in segments two and four have been left without power for 16 days over a three-week period.

This month, other residents connected to the mamba circuit and Python circuit have been left without power for nearly two weeks over the same period, these PSPs events have been implemented with, at times, last-minute notifications to ratepayers and the city, or in other cases, without any prior notification before PSPS event, jeopardizing the safety and well being of many residents, business owners, essential services and critical infrastructure.

Southern California Edison notifications have lacked defined and accurate time intervals, which has resulted in greater uncertainty, confusion and frustration. The public safety partner portal has not provided real-time updates on outages and at times, has reflected inaccurate information for an extended period of time.

It is critical for SCE to deliver advanced and accurate notification and time intervals to ratepayers essential facilities and emergency services in an effort to allow for adequate preparation for PSPS events, as notifications were not delivered in advance to many of the recent PSPS events.

SCE should allow for reimbursement of costs associated with lost food and other associated costs as a result of the power outage. Moreover, the lack of a customer service representative that ratepayers can contact prior to and during PSPS events, especially given the confusion and frustration shared by many throughout your service area is a gross disservice and demonstrates a clear disregard in offering quality customer service to your customers.

SCE has wrongly relied entirely on local governments to serve as customer service representatives. It is imperative, especially at a time when members of the community are working remotely, or many in the most affected areas are elderly with limited, limited ability to preserve their food or maintain health and safety during PSPS events that SCE immediately accelerate the development and implementation of enhanced electrical utility infrastructure to ensure reliable utility service and eliminate the use of PSPS events.

We look forward to meeting with your executive team to discuss our concerns and request for accelerated grid hardening. We appreciate your attention to this important matter and your consideration of this letter. (…)

Sincerely, Bill Miranda, Mayor.

“That’s a letter that went out, and we expect a reply almost immediately. We will demand a reply almost immediately, and we have already set up the meeting with the CPUC, and we will await very vigilantly for the meeting with the executives at SCE,” Miranda stated during Tuesday night’s meeting.

The City Council is set to meet with CPUC officials on Thursday.

The letter was highly relevant, as several members of the community came forward to share their frustrations and the impact that the long-term PSPS outages have had on their quality of life.

Sabrina Campbell was one of those who approached the City Council Tuesday. A resident of the Hillfield circuit, Campbell came to the microphone while carrying 2-year-old daughter Claire, who has a very serious intestinal illness that impedes her development, including her brain development.

Campbell shared that due to Claire’s condition, which includes “failure to thrive,” she requires a very particular diet and vomits regularly. During the outages, the vomiting “got a lot worse” as her parents were unable to properly refrigerate her food or wash her clothes.

“We tried to make it work. We had somebody from our religious group lend us a generator. It was really expensive. I lost a lot of food. We ended up having to ultimately go stay somewhere else, just so she wouldn’t get sicker,” Campbell said.

Although programs are reportedly available for SCE customers with medical concerns to receive rebates and other assistance, Campbell noted that the system is not working for her family.

“Unfortunately, because they’re overwhelmed, we haven’t been able to even get through to the SGIC rebate people. Because of the way it’s structured, developers are taking advantage of customers like me, and there’s broad issues,” Campbell said. “I can’t access the batteries for my child, so (…) we’re struggling.”

The City Council also acknowledged ongoing concerns about overdevelopment in the Placerita Canyon area by The Master’s College, with plans for a large event venue and additional student housing causing many other residents of the semi-rural enclave to approach the city for help curbing traffic.

City Council members acknowledged the community’s concerns and indicated a willingness to further explore the issue, potentially by having the city staff provide more information on the applicable codes and the city’s options for addressing concerns about Masters College’s actions and reviewing their Master Plan for future development.

To watch the Santa Clarita City Council meeting, click here.

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