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.
Treseder and Mai both voted Yes and are going to drive the agency until the wheels fall off. You should tune in to the 9/22 Irvine council meeting. It should be exciting. Bring your popcorn.
Rcv voting
Mothers Market Grocery worker ordinance push
OCPA
and who knows what else but those three alone should provide some fireworks.
Voting yes to make more money while Irvine is undergoing a fiscal crisis seems off. I’ve worked with public companies where the board meets quarterly; what do they do for 8 times a month?
Mushroom girl likes that OCPA money.
Her staff is pretty pricey
What does she have to bribe them to go along with her schtick? Also, the OCPA announced that it hired one of mushroom girl’s students to its staff at the end of yesterday’s meeting.
So I see the good doctor is fine with hiring *her* cronies to positions funded by government or their agencies. I have worked for public companies who handle significantly more revenue that OCPA and that board meets once quarterly. Cash grab is all that is.
I appreciate the coverage of this, Dan. It’s another conflict of interest. Our money goes to the board member’s best interest!
My understanding regarding the definition of “household”, means our utility allotments went from “number of persons per household” to just plain “household”. In other words, families or multi generation homes get the same electric “ration” as one person per home. It’s not fair.
Great article! By the way, Brian Probolsky left the organization three years ago. He owns none of the bad behavior of this Board.
When he left, there was a huge surplus and rates were lower than the IOU.
Since then, they have more than doubled the overhead and actual head count, many of those hired are Treseder’s friends like lobbysist Ayn Craciun.
They blew the entire surplus and now charge more than the IOUS.
We all know the FBI claims were bogus, but maybe they should look into the current Board’s enrichment of themselves and hiring practices.
Keep up the great reporting!
Probolsky hired the current CEO Mosca who makes over $400k. The CFO Probolsky hired remained and makes > $500k. Same with key consultants and the law firm. So they didn’t clean house after Probolsky.
Council will not get through the 9/22 agenda before midnight.
$5 that Treseder leaves early due to a perceived threat against her
Forgive me. But I don’t think anyone on the council has a conscience. Maybe Go but even he is compromised. And for what?
If Treseder and Mai have a conscience, they will be embarrassed by what they sustain on the 22nd. Believe me.
They all phonies. Except Go, he appears to be a self made individual and Larry who is just a monster.
The others ones are FOS.
There’s more! The cash grab will be more than doubled! At the Mon board meeting Sonne of Buena Park said she would agendize giving every city 2 board members. That will be 8 board members. Plus each has an alternate. All 16 can potentially make 300*8 per month or about $30k/yr each. Some board members are already compensated for meeting weekly with the OCPA CEO, no written records required. Maybe they play golf. No board member has expertise in energy trading.
The bigger goal? With 4 city council members per city getting money from OCPA, they will likely shut down any city effort to exit or reform OCPA. Since 1/1/26, OCPA is charging $25/month more than SCE for an average resident. No discounts anymore. Irvine could save $700K/yr by switching the muni electricity – street lights, parks, etc back to SCE. But Treseder, Mai and their alternates deleted an agenda item to discuss that, earlier this year. So that’s the game plan. In every OCPA city, 2 OCPA’s board members + their 2 alternates will be paid up to $30k/ year each to keep the quiet about OCPA’s predatory pricing, currently 12-16% more than SCE, OCPA’s misleading claims of renewables, loss of $45M in reserves, etc.
All OCPA rate payers need more info and need to opt-out individually and pressure their cities to exit.
I bought 29solar panels5 years ago. My bills are tiny and realtors tell me because I own them, they’ve added 5% to the sale price of my house when I sell.
There is no reason for the board to meet once a month, let alone 8 times
The OCPA board generally meets once/month. And a few committees, one monthly and a few others like quarterly.
What’s driving the 8 compensated meetings/month are 1:1 board weekly meetings with the CEO, other “briefings” not listed on the OCPA “board and committee web page”, events like those held by the lobbying group Cal-CCA (OCPA pays them $400k/yr).
Easy to reach 8 meetings per month, compensated at $300 each.
in my agency, we meet with clients twice a month; usually 20 minutes to 30 minutes. We’d rather spend the time doing actual work rather than just meeting to shoot the poop
Jung’s request is rich! He requests more meetings with OCPA as he cancels council meetings in the City of Fullerton!! It’s all about the grift no wonder he’s being recalled.