Council eyeing power pole options

La Cañada Flintridge officials assured a group of Flanders Road residents Tuesday the city is working with Southern California Edison to study the feasibility of undergrounding utility lines in areas where unsightly power poles have been problematic.

The matter was brought before the City Council in an Aug. 4 meeting, where Philippe Hartley and fellow Flanders Road and La Cañada Boulevard neighbors complained of newly installed poles creating a hulking presence in their yards.

The homeowners asked whether lines might be run underground instead, indicating support for a possible additional tax assessment to help pay for the costly transition. Hartley came to Tuesday’s council meeting asking for an update.

“It is true that the people who are most interested in this are those who are most impacted,” Hartley told the council, adding that he’d collected signatures from about 40 homeowners who expressed an interest in examining the matter further.

La Cañada Boulevard resident Jennifer Schloessmann said she received an Oct. 16 notice informing her of another pole replacement near her property, in the public right of way, and asked if the work could be postponed until a future decision on undergrounding was made.

“Why not halt this until that is done? Why go do more upgrades, spending all this money, when we’re discussing a feasibility plan?” she asked.

City Manager Mark Alexander said officials met with Edison representatives on Sept. 29 to discuss possible alternatives to the newer, larger power poles that have been mandated by the California Public Utilities Commission, which exercises authority over SCE.

Alexander explained the expense of running power lines underground — typically covered through Edison’s Rule 20 program — was not financially feasible for the city, which is scheduled to pay off a mortgage for an earlier undergrounding of Foothill Boulevard power lines for the next 40 years.

“Essentially we don’t have any more money coming back to us until that’s paid off first,” Alexander said. “Any additional undergrounding that we might undertake would either have to be paid for by the city or paid for by residents through a special assessment.”

The city manager said Edison will provide some preliminary information about what the cost would be to underground lines on and around Flanders, and that details should be forthcoming in three to four weeks.

A sympathetic Mayor Dave Spence said he’d appointed Mayor Pro Tem Jon Curtis and Councilman Len Pieroni to a subcommittee that would use information taken from meetings with SCE officials to make a formal recommendation on possible options to the council at a later date.

“Let us look into it,” the mayor said. “I can’t promise anything, but we’ll do our best.”

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Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com

Twitter: @SaraCardine