Friday Bits and Pieces

It’s Friday the 13th and is Jason back?  Just checking.

Here are some bits and pieces of stories I wish I had more time for.

• The California Coastal Commission has rejected Poseidon’s bid for a desal plant in Huntington Beach citing harm to the coastal ecosystem as its primary reason for a unanimous vote.  The plant would have processed 100 million gallons of seawater daily and would have produced higher water bills for ratepayers on average of $5 to $6 more a month — still less than what the spoke in gas prices is costing consumers.  Meanwhile, Lake Mead and Lake Oroville are at historical lows for this time of year and the capacity of the Colorado River is dramatically low.  As climate change makes drought a regular thing, I think the failure to build an additional desal plant is a mistake. Critics of Poseidon keep saying we have plenty of water — but where’s this cheap water coming from?  Economics 101 — high demand plus scarce supply equals higher prices.  What we don’t pay now, we’ll pay later.
• Valerie Amezcua is a candidate for Santa Ana Mayor challenging former city council member Sal Tinajero.  While Santa Ana has had other women candidates run for the job during the Pulido years, Amezcua has a real shot. She’s won multiple elections to SAUSD school board and is still at building coalitions.  Tinajero needs to be asked about when he knew his former planning commissioner Sean Mill moved to Riverside; the dates Mill offered to the OC Register, Voice of OC and the Riverside Press Telegram don’t line up at all.  Tinajero should have known.  If he was willing to look the other way on Mill, as mayor, what else will he ignore?
• As we teased back in March. Lorri Galloway is in for Anaheim Mayor.  The DPOC has already endorsed Ashleigh Aitken and Republican Harry Sidhu is running for re-election.  The difference this time is big money lined up for Galloway from the city’s deep-pocketed political contributors.  Sidhu’s mishandling of the Angels Stadium deal damaged his reputation. Aitken is to the way left of the city’s moderate Democratic voters.  Galloway’s previous experience as a city council member is not forgotten by voters who continue to call her for assistance even though she hasn’t been on the council for several years.  Galloway tells TheLiberalOC: “I will pursue all avenues available to help make working families and businesses’ voices heard and rebuild trust in a government that can and should be doing as much as possible for them.”  She will have a formal announcement event on June 9.
• Anaheim blogger Duane Reports reports that he has a copy of minutes from a September meeting of the Santa Ana Police Association where that body decided to fund Matt Cunningham’s OC Independent blog to the tune of $10,000; read about it here: https://anaheiminvestigator.com/2022/05/12/santa-ana-police-union-made-10000-donation-to-blog-run-by-political-consultant-tied-to-anaheim-chamber/
• Irvine’s Instagram City Council member Tammy Kim went to Washington, D.C. to lobby Congressional members on behalf of housing issues and while there, dropped by the Washington Botanical Garden, which is housed indoors due to DC’s four season climate. To compare this Botanical Garden to “her idea” of one at the Great Park is really a strawberries to mustard stretch.  Did she go to Arlington National Cemetery?  The World War II Memorial? The Vietnam War Wall?  Not even the Korean War Memorial in DC?  The former Air Force base in my hometown has more acreage dedicated to honoring Veterans than Irvine does.
• Its been more than two weeks since I contacted the Orange County Power Authority with some basic questions about CEO Brian Probolsky, a former member of Supervisor Andrew Do’s team. Probolsky lacks a bachelor’s degree and any experience in the energy sector yet is paid handsomely for running this new taxpayer-funded agency.  He is presently enrolled at Brandman University to pursue his degree (in what, no one is sure and Brandman University is now UMass Global).  There is an accelerated program for a B.S. in Business but its an aggressive and demanding academic endeavor.  How can he run this new agency and handle the academic workload here?  And the greater question is who is paying for his college education.  The cost is $500 a credit hour, making each class $1500 — the OCPA refuses to answer the questions and they haven’t responded to public records requests from our friends at Irvine Watchdog.  Chair Mike Carroll, an Irvine city council member who references this board as “competent,” uses the Authority’s lawyer to stifle public comments as he does at Irvine city council meetings.  It would not surprise me if ratepayers to OCPA are paying for Probolsky’s college degree as a benefit to his compensation.