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By Kevin Johnson
Mayor of Sacramento
Just finished one of the most important meetings in my term as Mayor.
Last night, I took a red-eye flight and rushed this morning to the White House for a meeting with President Obama, former President Clinton and 60 university presidents, CEOs and elected leaders from around the country.
The topic? Jobs -- and the incredible opportunity Sacramento has received from President Obama's plan to invest $4 billion in energy upgrades for our nation's commercial buildings through the Better Buildings Initiative.
This outstanding news could not have come at a better time.
Sacramento has been chosen by the president as one of just five cities in the nation for investment in our construction industry, where the unemployment rate has topped 30 percent.
That's what I mean when I talk about putting Sacramento on the map!
Thanks to President Obama and our work through Greenwise here in Sacramento, hundreds of workers from the Sacramento region will return to job sites and begin retrofitting commercial buildings, and eventually schools and government offices, making them more energy efficient.
And the work won't be done at taxpayer expense. Upfront costs are paid by private companies, who will benefit from lower energy bills that result from the improvements.
In Sacramento, the retrofit commitment is 12 million feet of commercial property. And that's just the beginning. There's $100 million available to property owners within the city, thanks to our partnership with Ygrene Energy Fund.
The Ygrene program translates to 1,500 jobs -- and that's before we add schools and universities to the program and achieve a 20 percent energy use reduction by 2020.
The 1,500 jobs do not include the 4,100 paychecks that will be created by our new Entertainment and Sports Complex, which will be one of the greenest and most energy efficient civic centers in the world.
This is huge. Sacramento is thinking big, acting big and generating jobs in a big way.
Read more about Greenwise Sacramento.
Read more about the Better Buildings Initiative.
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