Opinion: Irvine Votes to Strip Away Our Freedom of Choice and Lock in Rising Electric Rates
The Irvine City Council voted to withdraw from the nonprofit energy provider Orange County Power Authority (OCPA) at a special meeting last week, despite the overwhelming majority of community members who spoke in favor of staying with the agency. The council has empowered the Irvine City Manager to submit Irvine’s intent to withdraw from OCPA at any point in 2025, threatening energy choice for Irvine families and undermining our community’s climate goals.
Let’s be clear about how we reached this critical moment: Mayor Larry Agran called a special council meeting with just 24 hours notice, deliberately limiting public awareness and participation. The express purpose of this meeting? To undermine the Orange County Power Authority (OCPA), an agency that residents and advocates have spent years building.
Despite these tactics, the community’s voice was loud and clear. More than 70 residents spoke at the meeting, with over 50 urging the council to keep Irvine in OCPA. Councilmembers received hundreds of emails ahead of the meeting, overwhelmingly in favor of staying. Following the vote, a coalition of community and environmental groups issued a unified statement opposing withdrawal.
Mayor Agran’s actions are not only undemocratic but also uninformed. He has publicly admitted to lacking an understanding of electricity markets, programs, and regulations. Yet, he chose not to invite OCPA representatives or energy experts to the meeting. Instead, he forced a decision with profound consequences for Irvine’s families, all while denying the public critical information. This blatant disregard for the community’s wishes serves only his political agenda.
The Consequences of Withdrawal
The impact of Mayor Agran’s agenda would be devastating for Irvine families. Without OCPA, Irvine would once again be at the mercy of SoCal Edison, a government-mandated monopoly that has raised rates by 90% in the past decade. Today, 1 in 6 customers are more than $1,000 behind on their utility bills. According to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), these rate hikes show no signs of stopping.
Unlike OCPA, which holds public meetings to discuss rates and programs, SoCal Edison’s decisions happen behind closed doors—in corporate offices, Sacramento, or the CPUC—where the priority is Wall Street shareholders, not local residents. Mayor Agran is working to eliminate Irvine’s only alternative to this broken system.
Source: Public Advocates Office
Financial Risks for Irvine
Mayor Agran has repeatedly claimed that leaving OCPA would recover the $7.5 million Irvine loaned to help launch the agency. This is misleading. Irvine agreed to defer repayment until January 2027, earning $400,000 in interest. An early withdrawal would jeopardize this repayment, adding financial uncertainty to an already risky decision.
Our Climate Goals Are at Stake
The most significant consequence of withdrawal is its impact on Irvine’s climate goals. Irvine’s ACHIEVES Resolution commits the city to carbon neutrality by 2030, and OCPA offers the fastest path to clean energy for any city in Orange County.
Through the Community Choice Energy (CCE) model, OCPA provides cleaner, renewable energy while creating local jobs. SoCal Edison, by contrast, offers only the minimum renewable energy required by law, and its “Green Rate” program remains inaccessible to many residents. Without OCPA, Irvine’s ability to meet its climate goals will collapse. Planting trees and installing rooftop solar, as Mayor Agran suggests, cannot offset the city’s emissions quickly enough.
What Needs to Happen
OCPA must address concerns with transparency and accountability, including ensuring all Board members have access to market data and giving cities adequate time to respond to rate changes. These reforms are achievable and do not justify dismantling clean energy choice for Irvine families.
The City Manager must reject this disastrous path. Irvine’s council must reverse course, and OCPA must rise to meet Irvine’s expectations. The stakes are too high—for our families, finances, and planet—to surrender the fight for clean energy choice.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of Irvine Watchdog.
7 Comments
JB/CCW
December 22, 2024 at 10:13 amI’m an outsider to this OCPA debate. I don’t know if OCPA is good or bad or if it’s working or not, and personally I think it’s a good idea. I’ve just been following the issue through city council meetings and staff reports. Even so, just from a “balanced/fair journalism”–perspective, I don’t like this article.
Some problems with your article:
1. The lead and headline are misleading. We didn’t vote to withdraw from the OCPA, we voted to send a letter of withdrawal to the OCPA within the next year if the communication, cost-saving, and transparency problems that do exist within OCPA are not fixed. The City Manager expressly stated that the withdrawal is contingent on OCPA failing to ameliorate its problems with Irvine within the next year, which is why the timeframe of “any point in 2025” was afforded to the City Manager and is why (at least) Councilmember Liu and Councilmember Treseder supported and voted for this motion.
2. Double-check and clarify your claim that residents were only given 24 hours notice. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I can definitely say that Mayor Agran announced that this December 12 special meeting would be held at the December 10 regular meeting of the city council, giving at least 48 hours notice. Furthermore, you don’t go into the reasoning for how quickly this was done. In November, the City was required by OCPA to discuss lowering our base power profile (essentially, OCPA could no longer afford to give Irvine, its largest customer, the 100% Renewable Energy Plan by default, so they needed us to lower the default plan to the lower-renewable-energy-promise Smart Choice or Basic Choice Plan or have rates increased) by December 30. The City first discussed this issue at their November 26 meeting at the request of Councilmember Treseder and decided to direct the new city council to determine what to do with OCPA and its issues. They couldn’t do it at the ceremonial swearing-in regular city council meeting on December 10, as that was quite literally the first day (actually, the first few hours) of the new councilmembers being on their job, so December 12 is pretty reasonable all things considered.
3. You make it seem as though this is all Agran’s fault, when, at least by looking at the City Manager’s presentation, it is absolutely clear that city staff are fed up with how OCPA is operating. It’s pretty clear that there are serious problems regarding OCPA’s management if even Councilmember Treseder, one of the most ardent supporters of OCPA and staunchly left-wing people on the city council that I’ve seen, is admitting that something needs to be done to give Irvine more bargaining power.
4. Speaking of which, here’s your most egregious error: not mentioning that the city council voted unanimously (6–0) to issue this letter of withdrawal. This isn’t an issue of a “political agenda.”
5. OCPA officials *were* invited to the meeting by the City Manager. They just didn’t show up in time. See the city council meeting for confirmation. Maybe they could’ve shown up if they were given more time, but see my third point; it’s their fault that this was so rushed.
6. I heard one pro-OCPA public commenter complain about how those anti-OCPA only say bad things about OCPA and nothing good about SCE. You do the opposite. You only say bad things about SCE and don’t say anything good about OCPA aside from the on-paper benefits of CCE. I love the concept of OCPA as a governmental corporation that furthers climate goals and competes with private monopolies to lower rates, and unlike Mayor Agran I do believe it could work. But I believe you deliberately omit mentioning the problems facing OCPA, despite that being a central point in council discussion and, I would argue, the reason this discussion is happening in the first place, and I think that does nothing but detract from your argument. I don’t think anyone on the dais is pro-climate change or pro-monopoly, and acting like the people opposing OCPA are just doing so because they’re evil and hate renewable energy is not a healthy or effective mindset to actually get things done in politics.
I know it’s easier to view politics through a lens of furthering causes you believe in, especially such a morally justified cause as solving climate change. But you can’t do politics through a single-minded view of things, especially when money is involved. It involves diligence, cooperation, and compromise. Right now, we can’t get caught up in name-calling and moralistic opposition. I agree that the stakes are incredibly high; that’s exactly why we need to focus on fixing OCPA, not blindly supporting it. Maybe Agran will never support OCPA, but I think Liu and Treseder can, and right now our job as activists should be making it as easy as possible for them to support OCPA by making OCPA something that actually works; that itself is diligent, cooperative, and compromising. I think, and clearly the council does too, that giving the City Manager the power to issue a letter of withdrawal is arguably part of that job. To be more balanced, your article should’ve looked at the December 12 meeting through this angle (or at least addressed this angle’s existence).
Vilifying the people that don’t support OCPA isn’t the way to get that job done. All it does is create division.
edmondsmeyerson
December 22, 2024 at 9:44 pmGreat explanation of what really is going on. Seems like most of these young climate activists could not care less about the business side of the OCPA. The way I see it is the OCPA is nothing more than a commodities broker buying and selling power.
Dr. Arthur Strauss
December 22, 2024 at 10:36 amThe OCPA has been a corrupt boondoggle from inception. Multiple Irvine City Council members, past and present, have personally been paid to cover up facts, spread disinformation and used Irvine electricity rate payers as pawns in this endeavor. Recent accusations of a $100M pot of gold collected by OCPA in the short time of its short existence as a phony alternative energy supplier speaks volumes. Do your research before writing such a one-sided opinion piece touted as “journalism”.
edmondsmeyerson
December 23, 2024 at 4:53 pmThe author is one more lobbyist from the non profit Climate Action Campaign based out of San Diego.
Walter Nobrega
December 23, 2024 at 11:20 pmTomas Castro is a shill for the OCPA. He is a member of the Climate Action Campaign which has received a large grant from the OCPA. The article is full of BS. The best reason not to believe his rant is that he lied to the Fountain Valley City Council about the Basic Choice being 3% less than SCE’s basic rate, It was a lie of omission, he left out the words “generation rate” and a short time later OCPA CEO Joe Mosca told the same lie of omission. They let the FV council members think it was 3% less on the bottom line costs. Dishonest deception. The Irvine City Manager even high lighted the 3% deception in his report. If they lie about the 3% what other misinformation are they spinning. I sent the Irvine Council factual documentation demonstrating how the OCPA buys Wind, resells it and substituted it with “Unspecified Energy”. The report I sent was OCPA’s “ Power Source Disclosure Report” filed with the CPUC. Nothing will change at the OCPA until they change their energy consultant Pacific Energy Associates.
Harvey Liss
December 24, 2024 at 11:53 pmDoesn’t the Climate Action Campaign get funding from OCPA?
Dee Fox
December 29, 2024 at 1:01 pmLet me address the statements made by Castro in this opinion piece that
directly attacks Mayor Larry Agran, something Watchdog claims they don’t support.
Mayor Larry Agran called a special council meeting with just 24 hours notice, deliberately limiting public awareness and participation.
**Agran brought this forward because the OCPA needed an answer before the next City Council meeting. It was the OCPA forcing our hand. And Agran mentioned this meeting at the prior “Special” meeting when council members were sworn in. He also mentioned it before the meeting in the open space at City Hall. So Agran did NOT deliberately limit public
awareness, and Treseder confirmed this at the meeting when it was brought up. So, Castro has selective hearing.
Mayor Agran’s actions are not only undemocratic but also uninformed.
** Castro uses Agran, even though other members of the board feel the same way about the OCPA, to attack his character, AND with no justification. How is it undemocratic? Because he doesn’t agree with Castro and his group of activists? How about the Irvine residents as a whole? After all, Irvine had a 38% opt out rate, the highest of any CCE in California…and please feel free to fact check that! Uninformed? Apparently he hasn’t attended the previous council meetings when reports were supplied telling a story of ratepayer abuse by the board. No transparency as far as using ratepayer funds for the boards pleasure, as well as the “fixes” that were never fixed. Example, Treseder said she would vote to exit the OCPA if Ryan Baron was not gone. However, he showed up at another city’s council meeting trying to get them on board and speaking on behalf of the OCPA. It was confirmed later that he is still on their payroll. So, who is uninformed about the dealings behind the scenes at the OCPA?
Yet, he (Agran) chose not to invite OCPA representatives or energy experts to the meeting. Instead, he forced a decision with profound consequences for Irvine’s families, all while denying the public critical information. This blatant disregard for the community’s wishes serves only his political agenda.
** Another attack about his character. The City Manager stated at the meeting that he invited OCPA CEO Joe Mosca but he never returned his call. And it was Treseder who did not inform the council of the critical information…she admitted to it at the meeting stating she didn’t think it was a big deal! Again, another attack that was proven false and Watchdog did nothing to fact check it.
The impact of Mayor Agran’s agenda would be devastating for Irvine families.
** Castro’s opinion, but is it okay to attack someone? You said no, but yet you allow it.
Mayor Agran is working to eliminate Irvine’s only alternative to this broken system.
Again, selective hearing…Agran mentioned other ways to reduce carbon emissions in Irvine without signing up with a risky organization that is costing families more money every month. Go back and listen to this meeting…I am not going to rehash what we all heard already.
Mayor Agran has repeatedly claimed that leaving OCPA would recover the $7.5 million Irvine loaned to help launch the agency. This is misleading. Irvine agreed to defer repayment until January 2027, earning $400,000 in interest.
** Treseder and Kim voted to defer payment until 2027….Jung wanted to pay Irvine off. If they had voted with Jung, Irvine would have been re-paid. And leaving the OCPA, Irvine would be paid off because they have it sitting in their reserves, so again, Castro has his information wrong.
Planting trees and installing rooftop solar, as Mayor Agran suggests, cannot offset the city’s emissions quickly enough.
** Really? Where are the reports to show how much the OCPA has reduced carbon emissions? Another attack with no proof of his claim. Is this how Watchdog vets articles that are “opinion pieces”?
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