At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors’ meeting an information item was presented by California Clean Power, a private company seeking a sole source contract from the county.

This is an important change in the way electrical power is delivered to Lake County customers.

You will have a choice of power suppliers that will provide electrical service over the existing Pacific Gas and Electric lines, and PG&E continues to provide all other electrical functions and charges.

This is called community choice aggregation (CCA) and was provided by California Assembly Bill 117 (2002 Stats., ch. 838).

CCA could bring the following benefits to a community: competitive, sometimes cheaper rates; consumer energy choice; environmentally friendlier electric supply; additional county revenue and programming designed for a community.

Wow, as one board member said, “This is a no brainer.”

I agree, on the surface this can be a game changer. A competitive choice of power is big.

What bothered me at the meeting and the reason that I argued not to forward this to the next meeting was the lack of community engagement before bringing such an item of countywide significance to a vote.

There is essentially one meeting to introduce the item, the next meeting to OK a sole source contract and an additional meeting for a second reading.

The same process took several years in Marin and Sonoma counties, where the program cut its teeth and we can benefit from hearing from their experience before launching this in Lake County. I love the idea, but you know about the devil and details.

The quick process of vetting this idea and voting on a 10-year obligation without a robust staff analysis available for public review may leave important unanswered questions.

I get that we don’t have technical staff resources for such an analysis but a community engagement process, where many eyes are on the topic, would serve as well.

In the meantime, this is on a fast track so I’d like to offer some questions and hope to hear back from folks before the next vote.

First, a feasibility analysis is required by law but this was provided by the company that stood to gain from the 10-year contract. This seemed a conflict to me and questions the objectivity of the analysis, particularly whether we can use power generated locally.

One board member wanted to use power from The Geysers, but we may not be able to afford that source or any other than the same suppliers to PG&E.

This is a competitive business. California law requires a 33-percent renewable source mix which may go to 50 percent under some legislative proposals so these sources can be an expensive bid. Our mix of outside to local power supply might not change.

Second, the sole source company will guarantee that total electrical rates will remain 2 percent below PG&E. But the company also indicated that there is so much room between the power cost to them and the PG&E rate that they can guarantee this. Perhaps we should negotiate the guarantee at 4 percent or even 10 percent.

I don’t know, I’m not an expert – none are on staff either – and we only have a glowing one-sided presentation so far.

The 2-percent per person will be a $750,000 per year savings to the people of Lake County; imagine the swing in savings for each percent increase.

Third, the company forecasts a public benefit payment to the county of $500,000 quarterly which really is a compelling reason to sign this deal.

But it reminds me of the deal offered on TV that promises a large cut in price for the first 10 callers. It makes you wonder what the final price really is if they can offer such a huge cut in price. So are $1 million payments to Lake County possible? Maybe not, but we will have to take that on faith.

My challenge to the public is to become involved in your government process, review this proposal online, check the details and help your supervisors make the best choices on your behalf.

This looks like a really good deal, is it?

Jim Steele represents District 3 on the Lake County Board of Supervisors. He lives in Clearlake Oaks. He can be reached via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .