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Health & Fitness

Balancing Renewable Energy With Ramona's Rural Character

To avoid a Ramona known as the "Valley of the Solar Panels" the community needs to plan now.

In the interest of avoiding a Ramona known as the Valley of the Solar Panels, it is time to thoughtfully discuss and plan how to acquire the renewable energy we need (and which is legislatively mandated) and to balance that goal with the realities of the business and aesthetic environments.

Wind and solar energy are both suitably gathered for residential use at the residential level—small wind turbines mounted on roof tops or solar panels arrayed in a similar fashion. These small-scale projects seem to be a reasonable compromise, encouraging renewable energy utilization by and for residents as opposed to larger projects that deliver the output to SDG&E while negatively impacting one of Ramona's other attributes—natural beauty. A 46-acre project is approximately 2 1/2 times the size of Petco Park's footprint.

Important to our local economy is the wine industry. Vineyards and wineries are a growing business and rely, to a certain extent, on the ambiance of the local environment. Now it is not fair to grow one person’s business at the expense of another’s income opportunity—because of this and because requests to install multiple, large solar farms are at our doorstep—we need to plan now.

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If Ramona wants to provide renewable energy for its citizens and a viable wine/tourism industry, some long-term planning needs to be done and it needs to be done now. It is important to explore ideas on how to make this a win-win for Ramona, local business and the environment. We have had summits and planning workshops related to high-impact projects proposed for the community, e.g., traffic and village design. I believe it would be a valuable activity to create a similar forum for gathering community input on this topic too. Do not rush to accept this project—at this time. It is time to plan before the Valley of the Solar Panels becomes a reality and the growing agricultural-based businesses are overshadowed.

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