The Great Peninsula Takeout
Building on the importance of supporting local business, the Palos Verdes Peninsula Chamber of Commerce in partnership with all four Peninsula cities – Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills Estates, Palos Verdes Estates and Rolling Hills - announces “The Great Peninsula Takeout.” The community is encouraged to actively show support for local restaurants by ordering takeout or delivery throughout this period of restricted commerce.
Restaurants are struggling to weather the financial impact of lost dine-in sales. Supporting our restaurants through takeout orders right now may be the difference between restaurants being able to stay in business going forward or closing permanently. In support of local restaurants, the Chamber and the Peninsula cities are promoting “Takeout Tuesdays AND Takeout Thursdays.”
The community is encouraged to join in the “Takeout Tuesdays and Takeout Thursdays” initiative by posting on social media and inviting friends and neighbors to order takeout, using Tuesdays and Thusdays as a special reminder.
Residents are asked to show their support by ordering takeout or delivery, not only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on a regular basis throughout the coronavirus restrictions. Check the web, the Open for Business tab on the City's website, or social media for current listings. The Peninsula community is asked to act together to support each other in new ways amid the coronavirus outbreak. The “Takeout Tuesdays and Takeout Thursdays” program is a concrete step in that direction.
Utility Updates
A Message from Southern California Edison (SCE)
Like all the residents of this region, the women and men of Southern California Edison (SCE) are acutely aware of the impacts and challenges to our customers, neighbors and communities from the effort to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19. We support efforts to slow the spread and “flatten the curve” of infections to avoid overwhelming our healthcare system. Since the week of March 16th, roughly two-thirds of our almost 13,000 employees have been working from home. We are taking measures to be sure our employees and contractors whose critical work requires them to be at Edison facilities or in the field stay healthy. This means continuing to practice social distancing and hygiene recommendations, enhanced cleaning of facilities and the use of additional protective gear when job tasks require workers to be closer than the recommended distance. Despite the challenges posed by COVID-19, SCE has and will continue to provide our customers with a safe and reliable supply of electricity.
We know this is an incredibly challenging time for many customers who are responsibly staying home to prevent the spread of the virus. SCE has therefore taken a number of steps to assist our customers during this difficult time. These steps include:
- Suspending service disconnections for non-payment,
- Waiving late fees for business and residential customers, and
- Postponing certain work that may require a service outage.
SCE will however continue performing work that is necessary to repair deteriorated equipment, protect public safety, respond to emergencies and address the risk of wildfire ignitions. While the decision to proceed with work requiring an outage at this time is not taken lightly, the safety of SCE’s customers, our employees, and the public remains our top priority.
In the event of an outage, SCE has programs in place to ensure that arrangements have been made to protect sensitive customers that have identified special medical needs or other vulnerabilities to SCE.
As an essential service provider, we continue to partner with government agencies and community-based organizations to support our customers through these uncertain times. There is important work that must be done to maintain the reliability of the power system and protect public safety. That work may require customer power outages to ensure that the work can be done safely by our crews and contractors. We are carefully prioritizing outage-related work and evaluating methods by which such outages can be minimized.
It is important to be aware that the fire season will begin in the region shortly, and we cannot afford to forget the impacts that catastrophic wildfires have had on our region in recent years. We are going to do all we can to avoid catastrophic wildfires, while striving to minimize the impact of power outages on our customers and your constituents. SCE is committed to provide timely customer notifications for any planned work that is continuing and to taking measures to shorten the impact of these critical planned outages where possible. This includes increasing workers on specific jobs, in order to do work safely and as quickly as we can.
SCE understands the concern regarding the impacts of outages on our customers that are now at home. However, in providing guidance and issuing “Safer at Home” orders, both the federal and state governments have recognized the critical and essential nature of ongoing work to utility systems during the COVID-19 period. For example, the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (CISA) provided guidance to states and local governments regarding the critical nature of energy systems and ongoing maintenance of those systems by utility workers. CISA’s guidance defines critical infrastructure workers to include:
- Workers who maintain, ensure, or restore the generation, transmission, and distribution of electric power, including call centers, utility workers, reliability engineers, and fleet maintenance technicians [,and]
- Vegetation management crews and traffic workers who support [them.]
Governor Newsom adopted CISA’s guidance and exempted such critical utility workers from his Stay at Home Order. Governor Newsom’s Executive Order of March 19, 2020 states in pertinent part:
The federal government has identified 16 critical infrastructure sectors whose assets, systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, are considered so vital to the United States, that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, economic security, public health or safety, or any combination thereof. Californians working in these 16 critical infrastructure sectors may continue their work because of the importance of these sectors to Californians’ health and well-being.
Governor Newsom’s Executive Order can be found at:
https://covid19.ca.gov/img/Executive-Order-N-33-20.pdf. CISA’s guidance on identifying critical infrastructure workers can be found at:
https://www.cisa.gov/identifying-critical-infrastructure-during-covid-19.In accordance with Governor Newsom’s Order, SCE’s workers will continue necessary work which includes:
- Replacing deteriorated or certain older equipment such as poles and transformers;
- Performing vegetation management to mitigate the risk of contact between dead or decayed branches or other debris from making contact with our lines; and
- Implementing other methods to harden our system against the risk of fire and other system hazards including the addition of guy wires, circuits, relays, or weather sensors.
Again, where possible, SCE has taken steps to postpone certain work that may result in an outage. However, SCE must carefully balance requests to postpone work given the risk of system failure or the potential development of other hazards. It should be noted that a system failure could result in outages that would take considerably longer to address than SCE’s planned preventative work.
SCE will continue to coordinate its activities with jurisdictions to ensure the safe and orderly flow of traffic and will continue to take precautions to protect sensitive customers that have identified their medical or other needs to SCE.
A Message from Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas)As the coronavirus (COVID-19) situation continues to develop, we are doing everything we can to enhance the safety and wellbeing of our customers and employees. We are also committed to providing safe and reliable service and we do not anticipate any service disruptions at this time.
SoCalGas is closely monitoring the situation with local, state and federal health agencies, as well as monitoring and reinforcing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Our internal teams are taking a number of precautionary measures to mitigate exposure to the virus and we are regularly communicating with our employees.
We understand that timely and accurate information is important, and we will provide updates on an ongoing basis.
What to Expect for your Natural Gas Service- Rest assured, your natural gas service will still be there for you.
- We are committed to providing safe and reliable natural gas service to our customers.
- We are making some temporary changes to some of our customer service operations, consistent with guidance from public health officials.
- We will continue to make essential and emergency service appointments, including reports of suspected natural gas leaks, carbon monoxide checks, gas meter turn-ons, natural gas outage and pilot re-lights.
- For now, some appliance check-ups and non-essential service calls - things like inoperative pool heaters, barbecues, and fire pits are being suspended.
- During emergency service visits, SoCalGas technicians may ask homeowners to move to another room to maintain a 6-foot distance, per CDC guidelines.
Bill Payment Options & Services During COVID-19Where and How to Make a PaymentSoCalGas branch payment offices are now closed to the public. Some Authorized Payment Locations may close or provide intermittent service. But, don’t worry. There are many other ways to pay your bill. They include:
SoCalGas
PO Box C
Monterey Park, CA 91756-0000
What we are Doing to Help Customers- As a reminder, we also suspended service disconnections until further notice. This means no customer will have their natural gas turned off due to non-payment.
- We are committed to helping customers experiencing hardships, including from COVID-19.
- Customer service representatives continue to be available 24-hours a day, 7 days a week to answer your questions, help you select a payment option, or determine if the service your calling about needs our attention right away. If in need of assistance, we encourage customers to call us at 1-800-427-2200.
- For our Small Business Customers, we are waiving late payment fees.
Scam AlertSoCalGas is aware that scammers are taking advantage of the COVID-19 outbreak to send phishing emails, texts and social media posts. Please note that SoCalGas has suspended service disconnections to customers who have a hard time paying their bills and does NOT call to demand payment. Please be on the lookout for scams asking for personal information or selling phony products and never click on malicious links or attachments. For the most up-to-date facts, visit the CDC and World Health Organization (WHO) websites.
Facility LimitationsSome of our facilities offer events and seminars. At this time, we’ve cancelled these events and seminars and will continue to update our customers who have shown interest in attending.
Closure Information
For a list of school, library, transit and other local closures, visit the
Closure Information page on the City’s coronavirus webpage.
Open for Business
Need a list of Peninsula restaurants that are serving takeout and delivery? Or updated grocery store hours? Check out the
Open for Business tab on the City’s coronavirus webpage. If you would like to add your business to this page or provide updated information, please email
slee@rpvca.gov.
Watch the latest episode of RPVtv’s “Around the Peninsula” featuring an interview with PVP Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Eileen Hupp to find out how you can support local businesses during the coronavirus outbreak:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etJcYqikC9o How You Can Help
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