Faces of EBCE: Jen Cavenaugh, Mayor of Piedmont and Former Board Member
Mar 21, 2023
Piedmont mayor Jen Cavenaugh brings a high-powered corporate background to public office, and to the EBCE board.
For Jen Cavenaugh, serving as Mayor of Piedmont is phase three in a multifaceted career.
Phase one started on the corporate fast track, when she earned a University of Chicago MBA and landed a spot with the high-powered management consulting firm Accenture, where she met her husband, Dan. After they moved to the Bay Area, she shifted over to Clorox Co. in Oakland, where she managed household name brands like Kingsford Charcoal, Fresh Step Cat Litter, and Glad Food Storage Bags.
When they decided to start a family, she shifted to phase two. “I sidelined my professional career and leaned in hard on volunteering that fit around raising kids,” she says.
She had stints with the Piedmont Language School and the Game Theory Academy, where she taught financial literacy and strategic decision-making skills to underserved youth.
This in turn led her to volunteer her services on City of Piedmont’s Budget Advisory and Financial Planning Committee, focusing on infrastructure investments. When the Piedmont Recreation Department was developing an investment plan, she cranked out a 40-page memo.
“That launched me into local government, acting as a kind of free consultant,” she recalls.
For the third phase of her career, she went pro with civic engagement, getting elected to the city council in 2016 and re-elected in 2020. She is currently taking her turn as mayor, a position that rotates among council members in Piedmont. Due to term limits, she will be leaving the council in 2024.
This also means her time serving as vice-chair of the EBCE board is limited. Cavenaugh departs as Vice Chair of the EBCE board in March, switching over to the boards of StopWaste and the Alameda County Transportation Commission. The EBCE board will be welcoming new members for 10 or 11 of its 15 slots in the coming year.
“That’s a lot of change, but it will be healthy to get input from new members,” she says. “It’s especially exciting to expand to new cities, like Stockton and Tracy. We are bringing the benefits of community energy to new geographies and new demographics.”
Piedmont’s climate action
One benefit community energy has brought Piedmont is help in pursuing their climate action plan.
Piedmont adopted its first climate action plan in 2010, with version 2.0 rolled out in 2018. The plan seeks to support statewide climate efforts, provide a pathway for Piedmont to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2030, and be on track to reduce emissions 80% by 2050.
Piedmont was the first EBCE member city to enroll all municipal and residential accounts into 100% renewable energy service, when it joined in 2018.This took a big bite out of the city’s overall emissions.
But other sectors, like buildings and transportation, have proven more difficult.
More recently, the city adopted energy “reach” codes designed to reduce natural gas usage in residential buildings. Reach codes go beyond state energy codes to require greater savings, such as by requiring all-electric new construction and energy upgrades during major renovations.
Piedmont was one of the first cities in California to apply reach codes to existing homes. “If we can’t do existing buildings we’ll never move the needle,” says Cavenaugh. “It will take lots of education and incentives to get the attention of people, so they will work it into their plans and take action.” Starting this month, the City is offering rebates to replace existing gas appliances with electric alternatives.
For transportation emissions, Piedmont is planning a mix of electric vehicle, pedestrian, and bike-friendly measures.
“We are a small, hilly city,” Cavenaugh points out, “so e-bikes are an attractive non-car option. But if we expect people to use them we need to make roads safer, like all of our narrow windy streets, plus some big thoroughfares.” Piedmont got a grant from the county to make improvements at key intersections and improve safe routes to school.
For electric vehicles, the City worked with EBCE to develop a plan to convert their municipal fleet from gasoline to electric. This too has its difficulties, says Cavenaugh, since the police department has no parking lot, and thus no dedicated place to charge vehicles.
Piedmont is hosting a curbside fast-charging station that will be owned by EBCE and serve the residents of many apartment buildings. “It will be near a park and shopping district, so it’s a good place to walk your dog or get a coffee while charging your car for 20 minutes,” Cavenaugh suggests.
“Changes have to happen incrementally, since we don’t have a big infrastructure budget,” she says. “Most of our revenues are going to fix all of our current liabilities.”
Fixing a Hole
Indeed, fixing things is the top issue now in Piedmont. “Our revenues are not set up to make capital investments; we are not stashing away money for future needs,” Cavenaugh laments.
It was the city’s beloved swimming pool complex that brought the issue to the fore. “It was in poor shape, and we needed to either rebuild it or close it down,” she says.
A design for the new pool complex.
Voters did approve a bond measure in 2020 to fix the two pools, raising $19.5 million for construction, which started in December. But rising costs have added an additional $2 million to the budget, even after scaling back the project. A community group is now attempting to raise the balance through donations.
The pool complex is also the City’s biggest energy user and carbon emitter, so making it zero-emission is a central part of the climate action plan. “EBCE is helping make the whole thing electric, which has not been a small lift,” Cavenaugh says. “There is not much potential for solar on site, and using electric heat pumps for pool water heating is unusual.” EBCE is helping by offering a low interest loan to finance the higher cost.
While climate action is not always easy, Cavenaugh and the City of Piedmont are committed.
“Climate action will require residents to step up,” she says. “If we can’t do it as a city government it’s hard to ask residents to do it. We need to lead as a municipality so our residents will follow. And EBCE is helping us do that.”