By Julie BUTCHER

Among numerous other items of municipal business on Tuesday night, the Glendale City Council voted to reduce the dollars the city’s utility allocates toward its Public Benefits Charge (PBC) funds from 3.6% to 2.85% of the annual retail electric rate revenues and to use the funds that were inadvertently over-collected to fund energy efficiency programs.

In 1996 the state mandated the 2.85% amount to protect efforts at energy efficiency during the state’s deregulation of the energy industry. The funds were dedicated to promoting energy efficiency and conservation including new investments in renewable energy resources and technologies. In February 2008, Glendale Water and Power (GWP) raised the PBC rate from 2.85% to 3.6% to fund solar energy incentives required by SB1 and funded $15.3 million in incentives over 10 years. The increase should have stopped in 2018 but was “inadvertently missed by staff,” interim GWP general manager Manny Robledo explained; the utility continued to calculate the PBC rate at 3.6% until the present time, over-collecting approximately $9.2 million. Of that amount, $5.8 million was spent on solar incentives leaving $3.4 million in over-collected funds.

On Tuesday, the Council approved the return in the rate to 2.85% and authorized the overage to help fund the utility’s Home Energy and Water Savings Rebate Program, including significant increases in the rebate amounts for energy efficient Energy Star air conditioners, heat pumps, water heaters, electric stoves and ovens to help GWP customers transition to cleaner and more efficient technologies.

The Council also authorized spending of $499,800 in Measure R funds for a cooperative agreement between Glendale and the County of Los Angeles to fund a Traffic Signal Synchronization Program (TSSP) for 26 traffic signals along Foothill Boulevard in north Glendale, Los Angeles, La Caňada Flintridge and the unincorporated community of La Crescenta-Montrose on Foothill Boulevard between Lowell Avenue and Crown Avenue.

Once the synchronization project is completed, the corridor will be “fully actuated, featuring components for time-based coordination,” said Principal Traffic Engineer Pastor Casanova who detailed plans for additional safety and mobility improvements: adding countdown signals for pedestrians; upgrading push buttons with touch-free Accessible Pedestrian Signals (APS); installing new LED internally illuminated street name signs; upgrading traffic controllers and cabinets; upgrading LED vehicle traffic signal heads from eight to 12 inches; and installing new video detection cameras that can detect bicyclists and count pedestrians.

Of the total $3,735,660 estimated for the overall project, Glendale’s portion for its six traffic signals is $313,200 plus $186,600 for contingency construction engineering work.

Councilmember Ara Najarian asked the police department to consider changing the way the department contracts police towing services, perhaps rotating days rather than dividing the city into three districts, as is currently done. Police Chief Manny Cid indicated that there was sufficient time in advance of the contracts, which expire next July, to consider alternatives but he did not seem convinced that a calendar rotation is “necessarily the best solution.”

Councilmember Dan Brotman asked the Council to consider possible rules regulating extremely bright lights as well as the impact of newly passed statewide legislation – SB 969 – that could allow alcohol consumption in some public areas such as the Artsakh Arts District, and SB59, which allows for bi-directional charging and power being sold back to the electric grid. Councilmember Brotman would like GWP to consider a pilot to explore possibilities for the future.

Councilmember Ardy Kassakhian reported on “a remarkable arts exhibit” at the Brand Library – “An interesting intersection of art and science.” Blended Worlds is a collaboration between the Getty and the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL). Councilmember Kassakhian described one piece of the exhibit as reeds synchronized to the wind patterns on Mars.

According to Glendale’s Library, Arts & Culture Department, Blended Worlds: Experiments In Interplanetary Imagination https://www.brandlibrary.org/current-exhibition runs through Jan. 4, 2025 and “explores the landscape of human relationships with our ever-expanding environment. The exhibition includes artists collaborating with a team of JPL scientists and engineers to present a vision of the future that invites the viewer to consider the impact of greater connectedness with nature and its ability to foster a renewed sense of wonder and curiosity with our planet and the cosmos.”

Kassakhian also wished a happy 100^th birthday to 39^th President Jimmy Carter and shared “thoughts and prayers to those in the east affected by the devastation of Hurricane Helene and those suffering because of the hurricane and extreme weather patterns,” and added prayers for those in Lebanon and Israel: “All the innocent people who continue to wish for peace. As Ben Franklin said, ‘There never was a good war or a bad peace.’”

Finally, the Zonta Club of Burbank, a volunteer organization aimed at building a better world for women and girls through advocacy and direct services to women in need, issued an invitation to an exclusive screening of a new documentary in honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, “Unseen Scars” https://www.zontaburbank.org/events, on Thursday, Oct. 10 at 6 p.m. at the Colony Theatre, 555 3^rd St. in Burbank.