By Tim Redmond
According to a somewhat confusing story in the Examiner, SolarCity, a private company that installs solar panels, collected the lion’s share of $9.5 million in city subsidies under a Newsom program to encourage private homeowners to put up the panels. To make the public subsidy palatable, SolarCity promised to build an academy in Bayview to train unemployed San Franciscans to move into this growing field.
But if the Ex is accurate, SolarCity has just backed out of that promise, and won’t be building the academy at all.
So I’m wondering: Will Newsom ask for the city money back?
Not so far. We checked with his always acerbic press secretary, Nathan Ballard, who gave us a typically terse reply: “I’m not sure what the facts are.”
Hope he takes a few minutes to check it out.