Scotts Valley looks into adding third electric vehicle charging station at library

By KIMBERLY WHITE – Santa Cruz Sentinel

SCOTTS VALLEY – The Scotts Valley library may be going even more high-tech. Soon, patrons could be playing a video game on its Wii gaming wall, or scanning community event listings in the media center, while waiting for their cars to charge.

At Wednesday’s City Council meeting, city leaders directed staff to continue looking into the possibility of installing an electric vehicle charging station in the parking lot of the library on Kings Village Road.

If approved, it would be one of seven grant-funded projects scattered through Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey counties.

The city actually already has two other charging stations, one at Zero Motorcycles on Technology Circle, and another that recently opened at Walgreens on Mount Hermon Road. But Corrie Kates, the city’s community development director and deputy city manager, did not have any data on how often those stations are being used.

After Kates’s presentation, Vice Mayor Randy Johnson acknowledged that car battery technology “has not quite caught up with the hopes and aspirations of automakers” or the government. But the city should prepare now for what he called a “paradigm of the future,” since mass production will eventually make electric vehicles affordable to the average buyer.

“What we’re trying to accomplish is to create the infrastructure that will support electrical vehicles, so if charging stations are out there, that’ll give people more confidence” to buy them, Andy Hartmann – a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers who wrote the grant – said ahead of the meeting.

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