A Sit-Down with Councilmember Kathleen Treseder

• May 3, 2026, 11:48 am America/Los_Angeles

The original interview was conducted on March 3rd, 2026. A follow-up was posed right before the publication of this interview. Questions and Responses have been edited for clarity.

Utilities

Christopher Wong: Cottie Petrie Norris recently sent out a newsletter saying they negotiated a small decrease at the beginning of this year, but SCE announced additional increases. How, as the city representative, do you think we can address some of these rising costs?

Councilmember Treseder: Yeah, it’s tough. A lot of that is approved at the CPUC level, California Public Utilities Commission, and historically, they’ve been very friendly with the monopolies, and just about every request that So Cal Edison brings them for an increase in fees, they approve.

So at this point, what the city can do is to make sure that we ask our elected officials, who are operating at the state level, to do what they can; to ask CPUC to be more reasonable about these increases.

I appreciate that Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie Norris is working on this and cares a lot. She’s got a lot of power as chair of the Energy Committee, but I think it helps to have as many people on board as we can get at the state.

Christopher Wong: What about alternatives for utilities? I’ll classify the Internet as a utility in this question.
Alternatives, such as City Side Fiber or OCPA, are those things that we can still work towards or encourage?

Councilmember Treseder: I always like more choice and more alternatives in every branch, and so, yes, I am always for that. I was a Cox customer and did not appreciate their monopoly, nor did I appreciate the service that they gave us. So we did switch to an alternative provider. I was glad that finally we were able to do that.

How do our climate goals in Irvine tie into utilities and such? Well, especially for the electricity, it’s half of our greenhouse gas budget from the city comes from buildings, that’s essentially power, and OCPA can help us a ton that way, if we can go back 100% renewable energy, we would meet half of our greenhouse gas reduction goals for a relatively low cost to the customers. So I think that is very important. I appreciate the Irvine Ranch Water District. They’re always championing water preservation efforts. And whenever you conserve the use of water, you’re conserving energy, because water is so heavy, it takes a lot of energy to move it along. So all these alternatives can be very helpful for us.

Christopher Wong:
What is Irvine itself doing? What initiatives are we advocating? Are we advocating conserving electricity, reducing overall usage, and increasing the deployment of solar panels?

Councilmember Treseder: Yes, well, one of the things we’re doing is we’re providing incentives for folks in lower economic brackets to get solar panels for their homes. Orange County Power Authority is putting together programs where they give people quite a discount on batteries for their homes. We’re working on discounts for actually giving away heat pumps for AC and heating apartments. Folks who are renting and want to help the environment can also get heat pumps that they can install and take with them later.

If OCPA does give away heat pumps to folks who need them, that can be a big help. They’re also looking into giving away high-efficiency fridges and freezers. So there’s a lot of good work happening, and a lot of it is through OCPA right now.
*Interviewer’s note – OCPA has since begun distributing heat pumps following the interview.

Christopher Wong:
Let’s go ahead and shift over a little bit to the budget challenges that Irvine is facing. Irvine spends a lot of money on things like public safety, roads, etc. We also have a library system that we’re now responsible for. What are the challenges, and what do you see coming for Irvine?

Councilmember Treseder:
Well, I’ll just say the bottom line is that we have deficits in our budget, structural, sustained deficits. So, we will have money in our reserve to make up some of those deficits, for sure, but not as a practice. So right now we’re expecting several millions of dollars shortfall every year for the city for the next several years. We have to cut down our expenses.

Right now, we’re cutting down our expenses by, say, if someone leaves city employment, we don’t replace them. They’re tightening the budget as much as they can at the administrative level, but we’re running out of room there, so we’re going to have to cut some projects or services or increase our revenue.

I’m very careful with money in my real life and also in the city. I believe that we shouldn’t be committing to projects unless we can feel very confident we can fund them, at least for the next several years. Unfortunately, we’ve committed to projects that we can’t fund at this point. Do you think that it poses a special challenge for our library system and what we were trying to do? Yeah, I think it really can affect our library system.

I was gonna say, well, what could we do to maybe help that out? Yeah, that’s a tough one. I think that in some respects, we’re going to have to be very careful about our rollout of the library system and try to be as frugal as possible.

We had a lot of ideas about staffing all the different libraries, including different resources, like an area for cooking classes and other things like that. We might need to pull back on those for the time being, until we get that money.

I’m really hoping that we can get private donors to bring in some serious capital money for the libraries. I know that our residents really care about libraries. I think this is a project that we could get support for.

Christopher Wong:
As a side note, we’re often told that we’re not getting the equivalent services for what we pay in, such as the Orange County Fire Authority. However, we don’t really pay into OCFA, right?

Councilmember Treseder:
No, as far as I remember, that money goes right from the taxpayers to the state, which then delivers it back to the county. So we never, the city, never, at any point, touches that money.

As far as I’m concerned, we get everything that we need in the city. I’ve never had a single resident complain about the Fire Authority and the services they provide. They don’t see it. They just write our big check for the property taxes. As far as I can tell, the residents are very happy with this arrangement. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That’s my philosophy, and it could be very expensive to run our own fire department. There are economies of scale that OCPA can take advantage of that we can’t as a city.

Christopher Wong:
Let’s move on to at-large versus district. So, currently, you are an at-large council member, meaning that you serve all of Irvine. Can we talk about how you serve Irvine as a whole? And then in the future, if you happen to represent one district, how does your district’s priority shape your view? Because even though you would be a district council person, you would still serve Irvine at large,

Councilmember Treseder:
So the reason that I ran for office is that I care about the Irvine community, and I feel like I can support them with the values that they have. That doesn’t change depending on which part of the city I have jurisdiction over.

As an at-large member, I was elected by the voters across the city. They expect me to represent the city as a whole. I need to make good on that. As I’m making decisions now, if I talk to, say, Great Park residents, I tell them I represent you, and I take that very seriously. It doesn’t matter where I live; I’m going to think about your issues.

If I get elected to District Six, I want to make sure that District Six is taken care of, but I will try to make all my votes based on what is good for the city. I don’t want to be in a situation where the districts are fighting over resources, and we’re duking it out up there. I don’t think anybody wins there. So I’m going to try to have a holistic approach, but also make sure that District Six gets what it means.

Christopher Wong:
I think that leads right into my question, which is equality and equity between those districts. How do we balance those needs and priorities for each district versus the needs of another district and as a whole?

Councilmember Treseder:
Well, just to say, the different districts have very different demographics, even within Irvine. Just to give you an example, if you look at District Six in terms of annual income, it has the lowest mean annual income and the highest number of renters.

The IBC generated $69 million in Quimby fees over the last 10 years, while only about $5 million has been spent on park improvements directly within the IBC over the last five years. Much of that funding has been allocated toward larger capital projects, but relatively little has translated into visible park investment within the district itself.

*Interviewer’s note – Quimby fees are payments imposed on developers in California as a condition for approving a tentative map or parcel map for new residential subdivisions, serving as an alternative to dedicating land for parks

I don’t think that it’s fair or feasible to expect that all districts are going to be perfectly equitable in terms of what they contribute and what they get, but I do want to point out that this district is very much a donor district to the richer districts. So they’re paying the money, they’re not getting the green space.

In general, yes, I feel like the district should each general area across the city should have enough for those communities to have, like schools, libraries, so forth, parks that should be universal across, I mean, I’m gonna push back a little bit there, because each district in Irvine is, you know, there is zoning. So there’s, there is—

I want to make sure that District Six doesn’t fall through the cracks because they don’t have a dedicated district representative, right? So if I get reelected, that will change. I’ll be really focused on District Six.

Christopher Wong:
Let’s talk about services versus expenditures. The Irvine Library System is a service; OCFA is a service. These are services that we provide to our citizens. Then there’s our expenditures, like a parade or the Irvine Village Global Festival. They’re really nice to have if we have the money. There are things we need to do, things that are important to do, and things that we need to do. How do you look and prioritize things like that?

Councilmember Treseder:
I think there are a number of projects we’ve contemplated over the last year that would fall in the category of nice to have. I think that’s wonderful, if we have enough money for it. If we don’t, then it’s hard for me to justify taking money away from something else, like maybe after-school care or something like that.

If, for example, it’s done in conjunction with our normal street maintenance and won’t cost us extra money, then it’s a fantastic thing to do. If we go out of our way to do something right, I just think we need to be very, very careful.

In recent years, we haven’t worried about a deficit. So we had the luxury of thinking about things like that, but it’s different now, and I think the sooner that the council really comes to grips with that, the better we’ll be.

Christopher Wong:
I’m going to be very careful about this, because the next question is about raising taxes. That’s probably not on the table from any council person or mayor’s idea, right?

Councilmember Treseder:
Well, the tax thing is interesting, because if you look at the city tax rates for all the cities in Orange County, we have the lowest rate, which is remarkable given the level of services we’re able to offer. My perspective is that we should be able to cut potentially frivolous things from our budget. It’s just a matter of having the political will to do it. I’d rather do that than raise taxes. My priority will always be to try to trim as much as we can before we have to pull on some kind of cord that we don’t really want to do.

Christopher Wong:
I think the last question here is priorities for your term. What things have you done that you’re proud of, and what things do you still want to accomplish?

Councilmember Treseder:
Yeah, so in the past term, the things I’m most proud of are really working hard on the environmental programs and pushing that as much as I can, as long as it’s fiscally responsible, and whatever I can get the council to agree to.

I feel good about what we’ve been able to do in terms of good governance and transparency. We’ve had some players in the Irvine ecosystem who are not good actors. They were very active when I first got on the council, and they are not very active now. I’m very glad that we’ve made some changes.

The city administrative staff has also improved transparency and fiscal spending.

OCPA, very proud of that. It seems like a long time ago, but yeah, just four years ago, I wasn’t so confident in the agency that I am now because of the staff leadership.

If I get re-elected, what I would want to do is push back on some of the federal policies that are making Irvine, I think, less safe and less appealing a place to live or visit. A big one there for me is ICE. ICE has been active in our city, but not as much as in other cities. Every time they are active here, they cause a lot of pain and a lot of concern among people who are worried they might get taken. Bystanders and the community members who see this happening and don’t know if it’s governmental action or if those people are who they say they are.

Our police don’t like it because it’s making the… it’s… it’s reducing trust in the police in our city, and so I just don’t see any good reason for them to be coming in.

This is one example, but I want people in the city to know that they are valued, that there are resource centers that can provide services. I think the larger message is that we care about every member of our community, regardless of what’s happening at the federal level.

That’s one of the main reasons that I am running for re-election. When I was originally running, I was thinking, well, I love my job. I love my day job, right? I was thinking, well, I’ll run for, try for one term, get as much done as I can, then go back to my job and see what I can do. And that changed when Trump got elected, and I started thinking, well, I want to, I want to make sure that I’m ready to push back whenever I can.
It’s also rewarding for me to be able to help.

Christopher Wong:
Thank you for your time.