Letter to Southern California Edison from the Topanga Chamber of Commerce president.
Dear Mr. Ford,
Let me introduce myself: I am Kriss Perras, the new President of the Topanga Chamber of Commerce.
It’s come to my attention SCE is using drones in Topanga Canyon without having first having sought input from any Topanga organizations, our district County Supervisor or Topanga residents or businesses.
The Topanga stakeholders involved in your invasive actions need advance notice of your plans to fly drones in Topanga Canyon. SCE needed to hold a public input meeting in Topanga on SCE’s use of drones in our community.
Recently, there have been many social media posts from neighbors and businesses worrying and wondering who was flying drones over their property space without their permission. This follows previous concerns over the invasive nature of the equipment and other technology SCE is using in our canyon community which would necessitate the use of drones. All of this public concern and complaint could have been avoided by a public meeting seeking community input.
It is insulting that SCE continues to operate in the canyon as if there is not a community of residents and business owners to take into consideration. You must involve all the community stakeholders when making decisions, which we feel, is detrimental to the health and safety of our community and its natural landscape and environment. As far as we know, no community input was ever sought on this issue. Why this happened when you, Mr. Ford, have numerous contact points for the District Supervisor, Topanga Chamber of Commerce, Town Council and other Topanga organizations, is beyond me.
It is imperative you involve Sheila Kuehl’s office, the County Supervisor for our district, as well as the Topanga Chamber of Commerce, the Topanga Town Council and other pertinent community representatives, on any planned operations in Topanga—prior notice must be given to residents and business owners. For example, to my knowledge, no notice was given or announcements placed in our local newspaper, the Topanga Mountain Messenger.
As far as the Topanga Chamber of Commerce is concerned, it is the unanimous decision of the Chamber Board that SCE must cease the use of drones in Topanga until proper notification and explanation of their use has taken place. We represent a robust and diverse business community who have built their businesses with care over time and take the work SCE has been doing in our canyon very seriously.
I expect to hear from you very soon.
Sincerely,
Kriss Perras, President
Topanga Chamber of Commerce
323-352-4535
[email protected]
cc: Maria Chong Castillo, Tessa Charnofsky, Tim Pershing, Carrie Currier, Stacy Sledge
Here are the addresses you need to contact your representatives and David Ford, Public Relations Officer at SCE
David Ford: [email protected]
Tessa Charnofsky: [email protected]
Maria Chong Castillo: [email protected]
Tim Pershing: [email protected]
Stacey Sledge: [email protected]