The Orange County Power Authority (OCPA) was established last year —  by the previous City Council —  promising to deliver to residents and businesses in Irvine and other Orange County cities cleaner, less expensive electricity than what they currently purchase from Southern California Edison (SCE).

When the Power Authority officially launches — scheduled for about a year from now —Irvine residents will automatically be transferred from their current provider of electricity (SCE) and enrolled in OCPA. On December 14th, the City Council will be asked to vote on what energy tier Irvine residents will be enrolled in, even though OCPA has not provided the public with the associated costs for each energy tier.

Just before midnight during the October 26th City Council meeting, Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan and her Council majority — Tammy Kim, Mike Carroll and Anthony Kuo — voted to rescind the City’s “Sunshine Ordinance,” which requires City Council meeting agendas to be made available to the public 12 days prior to Council meetings.

Rescinding a City ordinance requires two readings, so the item was supposed to receive its final vote at the November 9th City Council meeting. In a surprising turn of events, Irvine residents were apparently able to stop Khan, Kim, Kuo and Carroll from taking that second vote.

Irvine City Councilmember Larry Agran submitted a Memo to his Council colleagues, requesting that his resolution on clean energy be added to the next Council meeting. No one agreed to sign on to Agran’s request. Because of the Mayor’s “Rule of Two,” Agran’s resolution was not added to the agenda.

Earlier this year, the Council adopted an aspirational resolution, supporting the City’s commitment to reaching carbon neutrality by 2030. It’s unclear why the same Councilmembers now refuse to even discuss Agran’s resolution to help meet the City’s goal.

In 2020, the previous City Council agreed to fund the Orange County Power Authority (OCPA) through 2022. So far, the City has advanced $7.5 million of Irvine taxpayer money to the Power Authority, with no oversight by the current Council.

Last week, Councilmember Larry Agran stated: “I have been on this Council since December of last year. Here we are nearly a year later and because of the ‘Rule of Two,’ I can’t even get a presentation from the OCPA to determine if the City should be a part of this entity or if we are being put at grave financial risk.”

Climate scientists say that we must achieve carbon neutrality by 2030, if we are to avoid an irreversible ecological tipping point. That is 20 years earlier than previous estimates, which means we must immediately accelerate our efforts.

Thanks to the commitment of more than 200 Irvine residents who have volunteered to be Cool Block leaders, our City joins two others (Los Angeles and Petaluma) in receiving a $1 million grant from the Empowerment Institute to help fund a climate “moonshot strategy.”

We recently asked readers to let us know where YOU think the long-promised Veterans Memorial Park & Cemetery should be built — here in Irvine on the ARDA site at the Great Park, or alongside the 91 freeway at the Gypsum Canyon site out towards Riverside County.

We are sharing a small sampling of the many, many comments we have received.

During the October 12th Irvine City Council meeting, Councilmember Larry Agran expressed strong concerns regarding the City’s funding of the Orange County Power Authority (OCPA).

Instead, Agran was forced to use his time during the “Council Announcements” portion of the City Council meeting to raise his concerns — including the fact that since taking office last December, the Council “has yet to receive even one public briefing, with appropriate disclosures and accountability for all OCPA financial dealings.”

Make plans now to visit the Irvine Fine Arts Center (located at 14321 Yale Avenue in Heritage...

It’s been more than six weeks since the Irvine City Council heard from residents in north Irvine who believe that emissions from the asphalt plant located about a mile from their homes has led to a public health crisis.

Agran was the only Councilmember to vote against the Resolution. After the vote, Agran proposed his own Resolution to at least establish a beautiful Veterans Memorial Park on the ARDA site. The Mayor refused to even discuss the park.