Tag Archives: Lancaster

Lancaster, CA: transparent city

This is how a city that means business acts: in public, on TV and on the web, where its citizens can see it and its citizens can interact.

Not only is Lancaster, California moving ahead with solar energy for jobs and financial benefit, it’s a transparent city:

City of Lancaster, California City Council Meetings are broadcast live on local cable channel 28.

And city council meetings are archived for viewing online; video of yesterday’s meeting is already up. They do require Microsoft Silverlight to view, but nothing’s perfect, and other cities use YouTube, Vimeo, or other more generally usable methods.

And it’s not just the Lancaster City Council: videos of their Planning Commission and numerous other authorities and commissions are also on the web. Plus:

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Lancaster, CA solar capital?

What does it take to turn a city into a solar power powerhouse of jobs and clean energy profit? Mostly the will to do it, plus some public relations and business relations.

Felicity Barringer wrote for NYTimes 8 April 2013, With Help From Nature, a Town Aims to Be a Solar Capital, the mayor of Lancaster, California, R. Rex Parris, said,

“We want to be the first city that produces more electricity from solar energy than we consume on a daily basis,”

And then the city of Lancaster took action, requiring

that almost all new homes either come equipped with solar panels or be in subdivisions that produce one kilowatt of solar energy per house. He also was able to recruit the home building giant KB Home to implement his vision, despite the industry’s overall resistance to solar power.

Result, according to one solar tracker?

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