In this talk we analyze the local solvability property of a class of degenerate second order partial differential operators with smooth and non-smooth coefficients. The class under consideration exhibits a degeneracy due to the interplay between the singularity associated with the characteristic set of a system of vector fields and the vanishing of a function. In particular we shall show the local solvability property of the class in the neighborhood of a set where the principal symbol of the operator can possibly change sign (which is a property that can negatively affect the local solvability of the operator).