During my first year in office, I was walking out of the county government center to my car, following an evening public hearing. The sheriff deputy who watches over the buildings at night was standing by the entrance of the parking garage and said to me, "Supervisor McGimsey, turn around and look at that building. I think every light is on, in empty offices, and it's like that all the time. We're wasting energy and money, aren't we?"
He was absolutely right. We figured out that even if county staff were turning off the lights at the end of the workday, the cleaning staff had not been trained to turn them off when they were done cleaning.
I am happy to say that nowadays, you'll see most of the lights turned off.
Our energy manager, Najib Salehi, likes to say that if he lit a match and burned a dollar bill, people would say, "What is wrong with this guy?" He tells us that leaving the light switch on is as good as burning money.
Do you see government buildings where we need to turn off the lights? Let me know, and I'll follow up with the appropriate staff.
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