The Orange County Power Authority is holding a meeting today at 2PM to act on a recommendation from Director Fred Jung that would increase the number of monthly meetings the OCPA board can hold where directors can receive additional meeting compensation. Currently, it’s six meetings a month and Jung hopes to make it eight meetings a month which would increase each members meeting compensation from $1,800 a month to $2,400.
Factor in all five directors and that’s an extra $144,000 a year that the agency needs to pony up money. It’s a cash grab, pure and simple for an agency many believe is on life support.
Of the five directors, only Irvine’s Kathleen Treseder is up for election this November. This is Treseder’s second time on the board. So her vote will be interesting to watch.
In October 2022, The Liberal OC reported that Treseder said during an Irvine City Council candidate debate that she had been interviewed by the FBI concerning an investigation into alleged corruption involving Irvine and OCPA.
That earlier account involved allegations of an FBI investigation concerning then-Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan, former political consultant Melahat Rafiei, and OCPA CEO Brian Probolsky. Treseder said Rafiei had told her about an alleged deal involving Khan and Probolsky. The FBI does not comment on any investigation whether it’s true or not.
Treseder won her election to city council in Novemver that year. By 2023, Treseder was an OCPA board member/vice chair and was publicly pushing for changes at the agency. In January, she called for replacing OCPA’s CEO and general counsel was necessary in order to reform the agency and even threatened to support Irvine’s withdrawal from OCPA if these sufficient reforms weren’t made.
In an October 2023 appearance at Unite Unitarian Church in Anaheim, Treseder claimed that the FBI had told her that “any agency that starts with OC and ends in an ‘A’ is compromised.” She was discussing the FBI investigation she said involved the Orange County Power Authority. The statement was reported by The Liberal OC on October 13, 2023, based on a recording/transcription of her appearance in a video still posted on the church’s Facebook page.
Now that today’s meeting seeks to pay directors more money for undefined extra work that only fattens wallets, I have to wonder if OCPA should be considered a compromised agency after all. And even if Treseder votes “No” on Jung’s motion, and it passes, can Treseder decline the increase in compensation or will she just take it? Or should Treseder and Mai both vote against this cash grab where Irvine will have to fund a lion’s share of it.
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