Author: Roger Bloom

Here we are, less than three months since the November 2022 election, and Irvine has already been served a big helping of 2024 political drama, from City Hall to the U.S. Senate.

Where to begin? Let’s start with the fairly predictable — though extremely early — maneuvering of ambitious politicians eyeing higher office and then move to the unpredictable wild card that is Melahat Rafiei.

In late December, Treseder was the swing vote against Councilmember Larry Agran’s proposal for Irvine to give notice of its intent to withdraw from OCPA, effective July 1st, with the caveat that the withdrawal would be rescinded if OCPA has taken concrete steps to address the many agency problems identified in the Orange County Grand Jury report. At the time, Treseder said she wanted to fix the troubled agency.

By not adopting Agran’s proposal in December, the City is now locked into OCPA until at least 2024.

The meeting included plenty of prodding, cajoling and sweet-talking the other Councilmembers to move forward with new policies addressing old issues.

The Council unanimously endorsed Councilmember Agran’s conceptual plan for the long-promised Veterans Memorial Park.

In spite of fierce opposition from Councilmember Tammy Kim, who has been a longtime opponent of district elections, the Council voted 4-1 (Kim voted NO) to proceed with the transition to district elections.

The new audit revealed that a whopping 20.4% of OCPA customers have opted-out, choosing to remain with Southern California Edison (SCE). That is triple the average opt-out rate statewide among similar agencies. The loss of electricity sales, or “load loss,” was 16.5%, nearly double the 8.5% that OCPA estimated in its pre-launch planning.

Councilmember Mike Carroll — who has served as Chair of the OCPA Board since its establishment — agreed with Agran, stating: “The worry we have is that if we don’t do this [give notice of withdrawal from OCPA], Irvine gets caught holding the bag at the end of the story….I don’t really see a way out.”