A CLEAN ENERGY ALLIANCE ON THE VERGE OF COLLAPSE

Tomorrow night, the Carlsbad City Council is voting on the future of Community Choice Energy. The issue is Councilwoman Cori Schumacher's proposal for “We the People” of Carlsbad to guarantee her Clean Energy Alliance's financing in order to keep Del Mar and the already troubled Solana Beach CCE in a partnership increasingly marked by dysfunction and a notable lack of enthusiasm on the part of its participants, save Councilwoman Schumacher herself.

For Ms. Schumacher, it's an existential crisis. How can we tell? One certain way is to look at social media platforms that the Councilwoman controls, currently featuring a "false flag attack" meant to leverage the ongoing victimhood narrative that is just about the only issue that Corinne Lenee Schumacher has left. 

When Corinne's "Clean Energy Alliance" implodes, it's a pivotal moment for Ms. Schumacher's career and credibility. Her partners in CCE are cocking the pistol of leaving this dysfunctional alliance and pointing it in her direction. The choice they have given is a binary one for the Councilwoman. She must either sell out her constituents financially and make them financiers of last resort, and the cosigner of a loan. Or prepare to eat a turd burger that will be seasoned with the bitter taste of her hubris and inability to play well and work well with others. 

So why did we get to this point? Arguably ongoing issues are pursuant to COVID-19 and the effect that crisis is having on civic balance sheets everywhere. But that is not really why Del Mar and Solana Beach are asking for their money back. As we will see below its a scenario familiar to Carlsbadians everywhere. It's about Cori Schumacher's hubris and inability to get along with other people. 

My concerns about “Cori Choice Energy” have been documented many times over the course of this journey into the unknown. It has been sold as a means to save ratepayers money by its proponents, but in its implementation, it is (at best) a break-even proposition. That is because of the surcharges regulators have built into the equation, to protect SDG&E and its counterparts from losing money on the “steel in the ground needed” to produce and transmit electrons from point to point. 

As one sees in a journey to any Walmart, volume sales drive lower prices. In the paradigm Carlsbad finds itself, three small to medium-sized cities cannot purchase enough electrons under their own auspices, to beat the prices that will still be available to those opting out of this misguided plan. Councilwoman Schumacher knows this all too well, for that is exactly why our “Clean Energy Alliance” board has asked San Diego’s much larger alliance, to buy the electricity for them. 

An argument made in favor of “Cori Choice Energy” is that it allows those inclined to opt for power generated from “green sources.” In its implementation, it is not really that way. Electricity is a commodity like oil and gas and pork bellies. Even if “Cori Choice Energy” was to put a buy order into a theoretically hydro-electric source, the fact remains that the orders fulfillment may come from anywhere, including fossil fuel. The same people will be brokering the same deals they always have, getting the same commissions. The only difference will be who writes a check. Still unclear are not minor matters such as how power generated by rooftop solar will be handled and credited in the three communities, and how these minor players will ever deal with issues of generation from alternative sources. 

Much like President Trump’s border wall, financing of “Cori’s dream” has morphed from other sources of revenue to each of you. Remember the “battery farm” from 2018, that Councilwoman Schumacher claimed would produce enough revenue to make sales, TOT taxes, and business taxes irrelevant? It seems to have gone the way of Mexico financing “Donald’s dream”. In fact, it’s always been a lie that Community Choice Aggregation would be a windfall, a panacea, or that a concept that has been around forever was somehow the Councilwoman’s idea. In fact, the consultant (Gary Saleba) Cori presented as an “expert” has been pitching CCE across the West for decades, and has been tossed out of as many Council Chambers as he has succeeded in convincing politicians that needless government intervention in energy sales is a good idea. 

So who really benefits from CCE? For Councilwoman Schumacher, it’s another chance to be the bride at the wedding, and the corpse in the coffin. For mid-level bureaucrats such as Jason Haber, intergovernmental affairs director for Carlsbad, it’s a chance to advance a career. For the Unions who donated mightily to Cori’s political endeavors, it’s a chance to set up a beachhead in North County. We see this in stark relief at the CCE Board’s last meeting. As the Councilwoman noted in the Clean Energy Alliance's last meeting, 

“I am supportive of more clear language and I'm also hoping my colleagues had a chance to take a look at the Inclusive & Sustainable Workforce Policy that was submitted by IBEW 569 and that analysis. That is the language that I feel more comfortable with ….”

Little did Cori suspect, it just might be the beginning of the end of her "dream" A synopsis follows of the implosion. 

(In the spirit of Cori's trademark  "Transparency," I'm going to link here the video receipts of the last CCE Board Meeting here: ) 

In response to Cori, Board member Kristi Becker (Solana Beach) stated that the Board knows that adopting IBEW language would preclude the CEA from ever-growing because other potential cities in the region would never agree to the Project Labor Agreement language. The same sentiments were expressed by Board member Ellie Haviland (Mayor of Del Mar.) 

In a scenario well known to those who observe Councilwoman Schumacher during Council meetings and her “online town halls”, as her colleagues are speaking, somebody is communicating with Cori. After she obviously reads something from an outside source, she can barely restrain herself from interrupting. Then at 14:57, she pounces...

“Thank you very much. First, I think I want to acknowledge Ms. Becker's passion for ensuring that the Clean Energy Alliance is successful, and I know each one of us is committed to that. I think that caring for, I think taking this on and grappling with this communicates both that we're passionate about ensuring that the CEA is successful and it also positions us in such a way where we understand the intimacy of the relationship between workers and environment. 

I think that there's, the success of the CEA is not dependent on us shying away from a good "worker-positive" Inclusive & Sustainable Workforce Policy. I would push back against the idea that having a good solid policy like this would be detrimental to the CEA. Now, I think that there's a way for us to actually go through, and, section by section, tackle the policy that's in front of us. I'm hearing some concern around language that's specific to PLAs, Project Labor Agreements, but the policy is actually larger than that, and so I wonder if we can walk, portion by portion, section by section, through the policy and see if there are portions of the policy that we agree on if we can strengthen language, for instance, if we're comfortable strengthening language in one section and then see, really narrow it down to possibly the two or three more contentious portions of the policy so that we're not pushing the entire policy further and further down the road. I think that's a good place to start, so we can start on where we agree and then end up at the point that we may need to have a, we need to grapple with it a little further. Is that something, Ms. Becker, you'd be willing to do today or Ms Haviland?"

At 17:25 Ms. Becker responds with obvious annoyance...

"No, I really would not. We have a Staff recommended, our attorney for CEA has put this together, a policy that is acceptable and he has recommended a certain policy and so has Staff and I'm willing to trust our experts and to trust our attorney and accept that policy. I do not want to go making that language "requirement," "will," all the language.....I'm not willing to go through this piece by piece. I would accept the Staff-recommended Workplace Policy at this time. I do not want to go through it, the other one line by line, because it's.....I'm just not willing to go through that."

At 19:17 Cori states, "Ms. Haviland, would you be willing to do that today?" With pupils rolled upwards Haviland folds and agrees to go through it. Kristi Becker pushes back and she doesn't see the point because, "if that's how the 2 of you are going to vote, then the CEA will never grow beyond the 3 cities."

Our surfer savant goes on the offensive, pushing back on the concept that her union dictated "Project Labor Agreement" just might preclude the Clean Energy Alliance from adding a single new member. She then attacks her allies in Encinitas and the other surrounding communities that did not want to work with her in this Joint Powers Agreement, asserting they insisted upon a language change and then bailed on her. A look at the pained expressions of Ms. Becker and Ms. Havilland clearly indicates that Encinitas Mayor Blakespear looks like a visionary as Cori persists. 

"One of the things that's important to me is to take the bias out of Staff recommendations that are coming down right now, so this needs to be a policy conversation amongst us and so I would like for us to be able to submit the policy language that each one of us comes up with. I think we have good options on multiple different sides and I would like to be able to present something that is, for instance, my recommended policy. We can possibly start from there." 

Councilwoman Becker responds incredulously "Could you explain what you mean by "take the bias out of Staff recommendations?" Touche. 

Cori goes on...."One of the challenging items that occurred, and it might not be good to talk about this in an open session. (Editor's note: Sounds rather non-transparent) This might be a Performance Evaluation conversation that we do in closed session, given it was a "privileged memo," but, in asking for legal analysis, legal analysis should end at legal analysis and not come with additional recommendations. That's not something that I find to be helpful in a policy-making situation when this is a pure policy decision. And I think that if we are going to give explicit direction to Staff to bring back to us anecdotes that are based in fact, like the Peninsula Clean Energy, some of the questions that Ms. Haviland requested, that those are based in the data from the organization itself, but if we are going to give direction on information being brought back, we give that, but unsolicited advice is not welcome in a forum where the public cannot weigh in."

Mayor Haviland tries to smooth the water and suggests they put this on a future agenda, stating she was "open to schedule a special meeting to discuss just policy."

Councilwoman Becker again pushes back, exasperated with Cori is wasting everyone's time. She calls her out for "bringing things up at the meeting", stating that doesn't work for her, as she's not interested in yet another special meeting. She states that the item will be brought back at the next regular meeting. 

Cue the camera with Cori SEETHING with anger, her pinched up face betraying a heaping helping of hatred and rage...

Mercifully there is only one last Agenda item. Councilwoman Becker wants to add more Board members for a laundry list of good and valid reasons. Cori goes off, vehemently stating she's a "HARD NO" on amending the by-laws. Mayor Haviland sides with Councilwoman Becker and agrees to place the item on an agenda to DISCUSS adding more Board members. 

The meeting concludes on a discordant note, as it's obvious Cori doesn't want another Carlsbad Board member involved who is a DECISION MAKER, because she knows it would be Mayor Hall, who would oppose her union advocacy (for a 5 figure donor) and grandstanding at her colleague's expense. 

So now we understand why Cori's counterparts in Del Mar and Solana Beach are demanding their money back, under the threat of leaving the Councilwoman twisting slowly in the wind. JUST SAY NO.

MANY BLESSINGS

NOEL