Elon Musk is the kind of crony capitalist that gives businessmen a bad name. Watchdog.org has the story:
The solar energy industry, led by billionaire Elon Musk’s SolarCity, has been dictating the building codes of a Silicon Valley city hell-bent on being the greenest city in America, a Watchdog investigation has revealed.
This was spurred on by the powerful solar lobby, which threatened to withhold a Green Power Conference award from a top Palo Alto city official unless something drastic was done to change its permit process, according to emails between city officials and the solar industry.
During the past six months, the city of Palo Alto has started signing off on solar panel building inspections with lightning speed after removing an electrical expert from those duties and replacing her with an inspector with less expertise, a former employee said.
All of this was done to placate the solar energy industry, which complained of cumbersome inspection processes.
McManus said the complaints came from other building department employees who felt the permits were just pushed through with no thought, and even a few customers who said the critical onsite inspection lasted only a few minutes.
Read the rest here: http://watchdog.org/154579/solar-groups-rule-city/