Location

San Jose

Team Mentors

Esther Duong

Dashiell Leeds

Helen Deng

Hoi Poon

Student Leaders

Daphne Zhu

Mani Bekele

Simran Karkhanis

Diya Prasanth

2024 impact

Multifamily EV Charging Reach Code

1. Aided in successful advocacy efforts to pass a City Reach Code requiring EV charging access in most new apartment buildings

2. This protects residents from heavy markups on commercial charging stations & facilitates EV adoption

CISC Leadership Symposium 

3 San Jose Team Members spoke at a youth panel on climate literacy at a state conference with an audience of ~1,200 CA educators and school administrators. (Feb 22, 2024)

SJCE Anniversary Event

• Joined San Jose Clean Energy’s 5-year anniversary celebration, 300+ attendees

• Gave a short speech about the importance of climate action

• Received award from SJCE

Climate Smart Budget Advocacy

• 7 team members gave public comments in person at SJ City Hall

• Our coalition’s advocacy resulted in reduced funding cuts to San José’s Climate Smart program.

Library Workshops

We reached 30+ students with our climate literacy curriculum!

• Hosted an online high school workshop in collaboration with the Saratoga Library Teen Advisory Board

• Held an in-person K-8 interactive workshop at Alum Rock Library

Publications

• Published Op-eds and Letters to the Editor in local newspaper on climate policy priorities.

  • Simran Karkhanis's June, 2024 LTE on Climate Smart Funding

  • Daphne Zhu's January 2024 LTE on Multifamily EV Charging Reach Code

  • Mila Bekele's January 2024 San Jose Spotlight article on Multifamily EV Charging Reach Code

• November 2024 election City Council candidate questionnaire is up on SVYCA's website

• Write-in City Council Candidate Forum

Previous — 2023 Impact

1. San Jose City Council Carbon Neutrality Plan effectively brought deadline to be carbon neutral to 2030

2. Organized members to work with elected officials and city staff as well as to give public comment at City Council and other public meetings to:

• Support city staff recommending to City Council a Multifamily Housing EV Charging Reach Code to require access to basic EV charging for all newly constructed apartment units in the city

• Sunset the Distributed Energy Resources (DER) exemption to San Jose’s natural gas ban at multiple past City Council meetings, and continuing into the future

• Support the creation of the municipal utility SJ Power

• Help maintain funding for Viva Calle and Viva Parks, programs which are particularly important in leading the city toward a less car-dependent future

• Successfully blocked two proposals to cut critical funding to the Climate Smart San Jose program

• Urged Mayor Mahan to include climate and sustainability in his priority list of city policy areas

3. Delivered interactive presentations to almost 200 elementary and middle school students on the basic science of climate change and empowered them toward individual action, civic engagement, and advocacy into their future.

What we’re working on: