2023 - Irvine Community News and Views

City Council Selects Citizen-Drawn District Map

The City Council has finalized a measure to be placed on the March 2024 ballot that, if approved by voters, would expand the Council to seven members — a Mayor elected by all Irvine voters; and six Councilmembers elected by voters in their geographical district.

As part of the process, the Council selected the final map that will be implemented if Irvine voters approve the City’s transition to district elections.

After months of citizen-drawn submissions, it came down to two maps: Map 151 and Map 163. The majority of public commenters endorsed Map 151, noting that its districts are more compact, the most contiguous in nature, and are walkable districts with villages kept intact.

Mayor Farrah Khan, along with Councilmembers Larry Agran and Mike Carroll agreed with residents that Map 151 was the most equitable choice. All three voted to support it.

Meanwhile, Councilmembers Tammy Kim and Kathleen Treseder voted against Map 151, saying that Map 163 was better for Asian and Pacific Islander (API) districts and renter-majority districts.

However, their arguments were contradicted by the facts. Map 163 would create API districts ranging from 29% to 44% while Map 151 creates API districts ranging from 27% to 50%. And, Kim & Treseder’s map would create only three renter-majority districts while Map 151 establishes four renter-majority districts.

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Open Letter to Irvine City Council: Time Will Not Fix OCPA

The problems at the Orange County Power Authority (OCPA) are systemic — shared by all community choice aggregators (CCAs) — because CCAs use many of the same high-paid consultants promoting the same so-called “best practices.”

Four of these “best practices” mirror unscrupulous practices notoriously employed by Enron, in the run-up to its multi-billion-dollar bankruptcy 20 years ago:

1. OCPA games the California electricity grid via Resource Adequacy (RA) for financial gain while putting its ratepayers at risk of blackouts.

2. Mirroring Enron behavior, OCPA takes the monetary savings from each Irvine ratepayer and transfers them to OCPA’s own accounts through a price-manipulation practice known as “benchmarking.”

3. Reminiscent of Enron, OCPA declines to open all of its energy books to public scrutiny, denying consumers independent verification of just how much brown power (gas-fired) is being delivered.

4. Mayor Khan sought to eliminate “greenwashing” with Renewable Energy Certificates. But, similar to Enron’s gaming, OCPA is heavily engaged in greenwashing.

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