May 2021 OC Power Authority Meeting Addresses Transparency and Accountability Concerns
The May 11, 2021 OC Power Authority meeting addressed public concerns of transparency due to the omission of meeting videos for the public and accountability of staff members.
On April 16, 2021, Irvine Watchdog first reported that none of the meeting videos were provided on the OCPower.org website.
The first three meeting videos were provided to the public on the City of Irvine OCPA Board Meetings website as shown below.
However, once the OC Power Authority created their own website around late January 2021, none of the subsequent meeting videos were provided to the public.
Public comments were submitted asking that all meeting videos be provided to the public on the OCPower.org website. In response, Boardmember Farrah Khan requested that all meeting videos be archived. The OCPower.org website has not yet been updated but we will keep an eye out for any updates.
To address concerns the public has had regarding accountability of staff members, Boardmember Fred Jung requested that staff performance reviews be required. Though these reviews will be in closed door session, this will provide a level of accountability that did not exist before. This issue will be discussed further at the next OCPA meeting.
2 Comments
Branda Lin
May 19, 2021 at 12:17 pmWhy is transparency important for the OC Power Authority?
The City of Irvine has agreed to finance all initial start-up costs of ~$2.5 M and initial working capital cash, which is estimated to be $8-$17M, depending on the participation level in the initial JPA agency. That’s a lot of tax dollars!
deefox
May 19, 2021 at 4:45 pmMike Carroll is NOT about transparency. In fact, the “oversite” committee that they will be hiring will have to follow their “vision” or be fired. So if any of these people take issue with the Board members and their spending or their charges that they place on consumers, they better remain silent or be fired. Basically these people will be their support staff, their secretaries. This program is a scam. All it is doing is purchasing energy from power companies and then these overpaid, unexperienced Board members will set our rates. So they are just another level of government formed under the pretense of helping the environment. But they are doing nothing for the environment because they are not producing renewable energy, they are purchasing it. With Southern California Edison, you are not charged an additional fee for “opting out” of this program, but you will be if you don’t. And Southern California Edison doesn’t have start-up costs of up to $20 million dollars for us to pay back through our monthly rates either. But this program does and it has to be paid back first and it will come from us. Also, when you realize how much more you are actually spending for this program, because in case you didn’t know, Farrah Khan and Mike Carroll already decided for us (so much for community choice) that Irvine residents are to be placed in the highest rate plan, that your neighbor who “opted out” and remained with SCE, is getting the same mix of energy that you are. Why? It should be very obvious … it’s all hooked up to the same grid. SCE maintains the distribution of their grid, not this government controlled supposedly non-profit organization. Think about this program and don’t let them confuse you by all the rhetoric that they dish out. Use your common sense, this is nothing more then a pay to play and Mike Carroll is the guy in charge!
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