emPowerSBC, Santa Barbara County’s new energy financing program, is a reality. County staff are busy finalizing details before they’re ready to accept the first round of applications.
Last Friday the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors approved the 2010-2011 budget, thereby allocating the necessary $5M in funding to emPowerSBC! This accomplishment is very much due to the support you provided along the way, either at Board hearings, through letters to the Supervisors, or in personal meetings with County staff and decision makers. On behalf of the Community Environmental Council, where we believe emPowerSBC will help our County become Fossil Free by ’33, we’d like to THANK YOU for your dedication to this program. We couldn’t have done it without you!
The program is now a reality and the County staff are busy finalizing details before they’re ready to accept applications. Visit www.empowersbc.org to find out more and to register for email updates.
Why did we support emPower?
emPowerSBC, is the most significant opportunity to invigorate the building and trades sector in Santa Barbara County history. Yet this job creation program is threatened by the County’s estimated $41M budget shortfall in 2010-2011. There will be stiff competition in next week’s budget hearings for every dollar allocated.emPowerSBC, as authorized under AB 811, will create a thousand or more local jobs as contractors incorporate energy efficiency and renewable energy generation products into existing residences and commercial buildings.
emPowerSBC enables the property owner to amortize clean energy upgrades for up to 20 years through a line item property tax assessment - minimizing out-of-pocket expense while realizing long-term energy cost savings.
emPowerSBC requires only $5M funding. The $5M in ‘seed’ money is then leveraged through bond financing to create $160M in energy upgrades and jobs. The funding and bonding that supports the energy upgrades is secured by voluntary property assessments on the upgraded properties.
emPowerSBC is already recognized as the most sophisticated and easily manageable program of its kind in development. It will be a model for hundreds of similarly challenged communities where job loss stalls economic recovery.
- emPowerSBC Center South
- 105 E. Anapamu Street, Suite 105
- Santa Barbara, CA 93101
- Telephone (805) 568-3566
- Monday-Friday: 8:00am - 5:00pm
