San Gabriel Businesses Hold Energy Conference
Several businesses based in the San Gabriel Valley met with legislators and energy company executives on Jan. 26 to discuss the rising rates for electric and gas power.
Barry Sedlik, manager of economic and business development for Southern California Edison (SCE) and Jeff Salazar an account executive with Southern California Gas Company, each addressed the crowd of about 100, who came to discuss the impact of the energy crisis on local business. The San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership of Commerce and Cities organized the meeting, bringing together lawmakers, energy company officials and representatives of the industries based in the San Gabriel Valley, an area east of downtown Los Angeles. Elaine Cullen, director of business assistance for the organization, explained that the purpose of the meeting was not to place blame but allow the business community to speak to their elected officials, a group that included State senators Bob Margett and Jack Scott; State assembly members Ron Calderon, Dennis Mountjoy and Robert Pacheco; and representatives from the offices of County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein, U.S. Congresswomen Hilda Solis and Grace Napolitano and U.S. Congressman David Dreier.
Southern California Gas Company’s Salazar painted a grim picture of the energy crisis impact on businesses in the San Gabriel Valley.
Salazar remarked on companies in the area who saw their natural gas rates rise from 75 percent to more than 300 percent last year.
“That’s ugly, folks,” he said. “And that’s what we see on a daily basis.”
The news from SCE’s Sedlik was equally dire.
“The prosperity gained in the San Gabriel Valley in the early ’90s is threatened,” he said. “The prospects of businesses shutting down or relocating are not idle threats but symptoms of a flawed system.”
Many of these business are in the food packaging and heavy industries, Sedlik noted. The apparel companies based in the area tend to be smaller sewing operations that are not as seriously threatened by the crisis as larger companies such as the Miller Brewing Company, which has a brewery in Irwindale, Calif. —Alison A. Nieder
