Friends of Mill Valley

Posted from the Marin IJ letters to the editor:

Supervisor Charles McGlashan's Marin Energy Authority death march gets more bizarre each day.

Now we find out that even if we opt out and stick with PG&E, we will still be on the hook as Marin taxpayers and Marin Municipal Water District customers if MEA gets into financial trouble.

And if we don't opt out, as MEA ratepayers, we will subsidize the county's and MMWD's electric service because MEA is planning to give discounts to certain favored customers.

It becomes clearer each day why McGlashan and the supervisors refused to put this to a vote of the people. The people of Marin are smarter than this and would have voted it down.

I wonder how much longer it will take before the people rise up and demand that they have a say in this matter?

Bob Lambert, San Rafael

Posted from the Marin IJ letters to the Editor:

While the initial costs to set up the Marin Energy Authority were paid for solely out of our tight county budget, assuring the cities that there would be no liability to them if they joined, their staff has suddenly realized that borrowing additional money to start the public power agency will be difficult since there are no assets (remember, the cities have no liability).

As a result, the board is considering providing discounts to new customers if they will guarantee the necessary loans.

Of course, if the project fails, those guarantors would be responsible for paying back the balance of any such loans.

While, at my insistence, the board reaffirmed that it would not ask any city to become a guarantor, so as to not break their promise that no city would be required to assume such a liability, it was obvious that some city representatives thought it might be a good idea.

In case you didn't see yesterday's IJ: http://www.marinij.com/marinnews/ci_14128740

Mill Valley and other cities need to push back on The Marin Energy Authority (MEA) and tell them to "get it right." The fundamental flaw with MEA is its structure.

Consider the following alternative:

1.  MEA should be governed by a board that includes representatives of every city in the County. Membership should be automatic. All the cities, working together, should explore ideas and programs to address clean energy options.

2.  Participation in programs like Marin Clean Energy (MCE) should be separate (i.e. cities can be participate in MCE or not without effecting their participation in MEA).

3.  Proposed programs, like MCE, should not be enacted or become operational unless 2/3 of the MEA Board (comprised of representatives of all the cities) approves the program.

4.  If a program like MCE is approved, any resident or business or city can decide to participate in that program, whether or not they are in a city that voted for or against it.

The following is the link to the Marin Energy Authority's preliminary response to the Grand Jury's Report on the Marin Clean Energy Intiative: http://marinenergyauthority.org/PDF/Grand_Jury_MEA_Response.pdf

The "F"s refer to comments on the "Findings" which begin on Pg. 16 of the Grand Jury Report. The R's refer to comments on the recommendations.

The link to the Grand Jury report is: http://www.co.marin.ca.us/depts/GJ/main/cvgrjr/2009gj/clean_energy.pdf

You may be surprised at the amount of inaccurate information in the Grand Jury Report. I know I was.

I've pasted below Charles McGlashan’s email response to Bob Silvestri’s letter to the MV City Council regarding the Marin Clean Energy project (MCE 2.0 - More Choice - Less Risk) to provide a balanced perspective. I think it's important to give the Friends of Mill Valley this information so they can make an informed decision.

From: McGlashan, Charles [mailto:CMcGlashan@co.marin.ca.us]
Sent: Wednesday, December 23, 2009 12:56 PM
To: bob silvestri; Kinsey, Steven; Hymel, Matthew
Cc: Weisz, Dawn; Alden, Leslie; Marie Kerpan
Subject: RE: MCE 2.0 More Choice - Less Risk

Hi Bob,

Rest assured I am asking no one to simply trust me on the MCE proposal. This project has been studied by 7 consulting firms over 6 years. The only reason I mention its complexity is the fact that so many errors in understanding, and repetition of questions that have already been answered, keep coming back again...

To respond to a couple of your points:

I appreciate your invitation to be informed and make my own decision about whether or not the MCE plan should be accepted by the City of Mill Valley. I have looked to your site often to keep me abreast of many matters, especially development projects. On the subject of Marin Clean Energy, I would like you to add some content to your emails and site if at all possible, because I don't think there is enough to allow one to make a balanced decision.

Specifically, Marie Karpan has sent a letter to your monitor which includes an in-depth response from Charles McGlashan to one of your submitters. In her letter she also includes a pdf of a preliminary response from the Marin Energy Authority Board to the Grand Jury's fact-finding. This response was requested by the Grand Jury. It would be interesting to know if the Grand Jury has a response to the response. I do not know the answer to this.

Dear Mill Valley City Council,

For years proponents for Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) of retail electricity procurement in Marin have anointed the Marin CCA scheme, called Marin Clean Energy (MCE), with all manner of virtues. But at its root Marin Clean Energy is nothing more than a return to the disastrous deregulation of the California electric industry, which permitted out-of-state energy companies to steal billions from California electric customers. Just as State legislators did when they voted to deregulate the California electricity marketplace, Marin elected officials serving on the Marin Energy Authority (an obscure governmental agency charged with implementing the flawed plans of MCE) have approved the ‘contracting out’ of Marin electricity procurement to Shell Energy of North America. Shell Energy is an energy trading company; it purchases electricity in and outside of California and will resell that power to MEA customers in Mill Valley.

The City Council is meeting on Monday, January 4th to decide whether to withdraw from Marin Energy Authority's (MEA) Marin Clean Energy (MCE) program, and their pending  5 year Power Purchase Agreement with Shell Energy North America.

The Marin County Civil Grand Jury reviewed the Marin Clean Energy program and issued a report "Marin Clean Energy: Pull the Plug", recommending that the program be abandoned. Novato, Larkspur, and Corte Madera have already withdrawn.