Chico City Councilmember Katie Hawley opened a discussion on cooling standards at the Sept. 1 meeting, but before the discussion began rescinded much of what she had asked to discuss.
Ultimately, the Council voted 6-1 for the city attorney to present on current regulations for cooling standards in commercial buildings.
The cooling standards ensure that commercial buildings are prepared to handle the number of appliances needed while maintaining a safe, comfortable temperature. Extreme heat puts more strain on the infrastructure of aging downtown buildings and may threaten workers and patrons with heat illness.
Hawley’s initial report suggested examining residential buildings, also. But at the meeting, she asked to leave that out. She even suggested ignoring the report altogether, and instead indicated she wanted to jump start a conversation about how the city can better remedy the effects of rising average temperatures and extreme heat.
The Council, though, continued to discuss cooling standards in the downtown area and decided on a presentation to better understand what regulations — governed by California and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration — are already in place.
Council members raised concerns about “isolated incidents” where buildings were advertised as restaurant ready, but did not have the electrical capacity to run all the necessary appliances simultaneously while also ensuring the building was at comfortable temperatures.
Councilmember Addison Winslow noted OSHA applies to business owners, and more could be done to shift or share the burden with building owners.
“They (building owners) can provide substandard services of energy,” Winslow said. “The businesses just have to deal with it because they’re the tenants.”
Councilmember Tom van Overbeek, a commercial building owner, was the only dissenting vote, saying, “The normal operation of the market takes care” of ensuring that buildings have adequate cooling.
But Hawley said it was an important discussion for the Council. She said applying a broad stroke ordinance might unduly affect downtown business and building owners. “We don’t want to be reactive to scenarios that have been fairly isolated by creating a lot of strings for everyone else operating in downtown,” Hawley said.
Councilmember Bryce Goldstein agreed the discussion should happen, but said it isn’t an immediate priority.
City Attorney Ryan Jones will present current regulations to Council at an undecided date. The Council will then discuss if there are gaps it wishes to fill.
A flurry of Council requests
In an unusually short meeting, council members asked for several items to be added for discussion at a later date.
- Councilmember Addison Winslow asked to consider reserving a percentage of Measure H funds for infrastructure. His motion failed 3-4, with Council members van Overbeek and Mike O’Brien, Mayor Kasey Reynolds and Vice Mayor Dale Bennett dissenting.
- Winslow also brought up rent stabilization for mobile home parks. A motion to reconsider passed unanimously, with some Council members skeptical of any type of rent control.
- Van Overbeek asked to discuss placing Winslow and O’Brien on an ad hoc committee to independently review the internal investigation into the police department’s sharing of automated license plate reader data.
The internal investigation follows a ChicoSol story that uncovered sharing agreements with out-of-state and federal agencies, suggesting possible violations of state law.
Van Overbeek’s motion passed 6-1 for a discussion at the Sept. 15 Council meeting. Hawley dissented, noting that the Sept. 15 agenda is packed.
Chris Hutton is a freelance journalist and a New Generation reporting contributor to ChicoSol.