After solar academy bust, out-of-towners lose favor
By: John Upton
Examiner Staff Writer
November 6, 2009
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| Broken promise: A training academy for solar panel installers was slated for the Bayview district, but the company charged with building it abandoned those plans. (Examiner file photo) |
Out-of-town solar panel installers could be banned from a San Francisco incentive program after a rogue installer broke a promise to build a training academy in an economically distressed neighborhood.
Supervisors lambasted SolarCity during a committee hearing Thursday regarding the Foster City company’s failure to deliver on its commitment to build a green-collar training academy. SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive made the commitment last year while pressuring lawmakers to approve Mayor Gavin Newsom’s proposed GoSolarSF program.
The academy would charge students a fee for classes and then provide guaranteed jobs as installers to graduates, Rive said at the time.
He promised lawmakers that SolarCity would build the academy in the Bayview-Hunters Point area — where unemployment is rife among tradespeople of color — if they approved GoSolarSF to help residents, businesses and nonprofits meet installation costs.
Newsom’s $3 million GoSolarSF pilot program was approved in mid-2008 and it has grown into a $9.5 million handout that has attracted applications from more than 1,000 hopeful solar panel customers. Panels graced fewer than 700 buildings in The City in 2007.
Rive said Thursday the company failed to live up to its commitment with The City, but he rejected supervisors’ calls to spend money on existing training programs as compensation.
The installation giant may donate employee time to support an existing training program, Rive said.
Officials from various labor, training and job placement organizations that serve southeastern San Francisco residents, including Young Community Developers, depicted SolarCity on Thursday as a dishonest company that exaggerates job opportunities and fails to work with low-income communities.
“The City needs to step up and enforce what was promised to the community,” City College of San Francisco Trustee Chris Jackson said.
Toward the end of the hearing, after Rive bolted out the door, Supervisor Chris Daly hinted at GoSolarSF changes.
“If they don’t want to be a good player ... then let’s give all the incentives to the San Francisco-based installers,” he said.
The hearing will be continued in the future, Daly said.
