Just in time for the holidays, the Orange County Power Authority (OCPA) got a lump of coal in the form of another highly critical review of the agency’s operations.

The auditors for the County blasted the OCPA for offering rates that are significantly higher than SCE rates, and making rate information difficult for ratepayers to find.

Councilman Larry Agran requested an emergency Council meeting to discuss a proposal for the City of Irvine to give OCPA a notice of withdrawal from the agency, effective July 1, 2023, with the caveat that the withdrawal will be rescinded if OCPA takes concrete steps to address the problems identified by an Orange County Grand Jury report and County of Orange audit.

However, Mayor Farrah Khan, Vice Mayor Tammy Kim and newly elected Councilmember Kathleen Treseder voted to remain in OCPA.

The City of Irvine is hosting a pajama party drive-in movie event on Saturday, December 10th at 5:30pm.

Space is limited so registration is required!

On November 7th, a vote to remove Brian Probolsky as CEO of the troubled Orange County Power Authority (OCPA) failed in a closed session of the agency’s board, according to sources at the OCPA and Irvine City Hall.

If OCPA collapses, Irvine taxpayers and electricity ratepayers could be on the hook for tens of millions of dollars in loans, loan guarantees, and other liabilities that OCPA has incurred. In fact, ratepayers in all of the OCPA member cities could be responsible for the more than half-a-billion dollars in energy purchase agreements that OCPA has signed.

In matters of public policy, Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan and her City Council majority — Anthony Kuo, Tammy Kim and Mike Carroll — have a pattern of ignoring or shutting out public input, staff recommendations, and established procedures.

The OC Power Authority (OCPA) was established by Mayor Khan and Councilmembers Carroll and Kuo in 2019 with little review — even though they were committing millions of Irvine taxpayer dollars. OCPA is now the subject of three audits (City of Irvine, County of Orange, California State Auditor) and there is an ongoing FBI investigation.

An Irvine Community News & Views investigation shows that a huge influx of “dark money” — funding an unprecedented deluge of political “hit piece” mailers against Irvine City Councilmember Larry Agran — originated from the two largest developers in Irvine: The Irvine Company and FivePoint.

So far, $355,000 from the developers has been funneled to the Building Industry Association of Southern California PAC (BIA), which then transferred the money to the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. The Party then sent a large portion of the money —  $270,000 — to a PAC (Working Families United), which has close ties to disgraced Democratic campaign consultant Melahat Rafiei and Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan. (Rafiei and Khan are the subjects of an ongoing FBI investigation into corruption in Irvine.)

Hit pieces, paid for by hard-to-trace “dark money” Political Action Committees (PACs), have begun fouling Irvine voters’ mailboxes, taking aim at Councilmember Larry Agran. The mailers falsely claim Agran supported the establishment of the Orange County Power Authority (OCPA).

Crummit was also the treasurer of Khan’s 2020 mayoral campaign and is handling her re-election campaign finances this year.

During a contentious marathon meeting on September 27th, the Irvine City Council approved two controversial long-term contracts for facilities to be built in the Great Park.

The actions came despite objections from residents that the agreements and supporting information totaling more than 600 pages were made public just a week before the Council meeting and were being pushed through without public review or input by the City’s Finance Commission, Planning Commission or Transportation Commission.

When the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) probe of corruption in Anaheim burst into the news in May, the term “Anaheim Cabal” — a secretive, backroom group of business and government leaders — entered the political lexicon.

A timeline outlines what has been uncovered by Irvine Community News & Views and other news organizations. The timeline includes gaps and raises more questions than it answers, but an array of facts show that something has been going on in Irvine for years that requires further investigation.

After promising to do better to keep residents informed regarding its operations, the Orange County Power Authority (OCPA) waited until late Friday afternoon — just before the start of the Labor Day weekend — to release its 145-page board meeting agenda for Tuesday (September 6th).

During the September 6th meeting, the OCPA board grappled with yet another audit of the agency — this one by the County of Orange. The board also had to address questions regarding who can be a board member and how board members are selected.