In Richmond, it’s all drama -- about conflicts, accusations, investigations, litigation, condemnations  censures, restraining orders, terminations, resignations, staff shortages, and much more. If you follow the news, the blogs, NextDoor and Facebook, you would think all I do is fight with the (former) city manager, city attorney and the RPA.

Fortunately, I have a political life beyond Richmond where none of this drama exists. I am fortunate to serve on nearly a dozen regional boards and commission where we have respectful and collegiate board members focused on improving the quality of life and saving the planet, not petty disputes among board members. We also have great staff members, high-performing finance managers, extraordinary executive directors and rational legal counsel. It may be worth noting that there were two items to report out of CCTA closed session last night, one a salary increase for the executive director and settlement of a lawsuit. The board chair reported these out in closed session, unlike in Richmond where the City Council has barred the mayor from reporting on closed session actions.

Last night I participated in two regional board meetings, the ABAG Executive Committee where I represent Contra Costa cities, and the MCE board meeting, where I represent Richmond as well as serving as chair.

ABAG did some heavy lifting this year, adopting in collaboration with MTC the Plan Bay Area 2050, and last night, we adopted the final, highly controversial Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA), which allocates mandatory housing supply amounts to cities and counties. There are many cities and some counties that do not want to grow, especially when it comes to affordable housing. There were 28 appeals of the final plan by cities and counties, but only one was sustained because it was based on an error in boundaries.

Figure 1 - RNA Presentation at ABAG
Also last night was MCE’s final board meeting of 2021 where the 2021 Impact Report was presented. In 2021, MCE:

• Had 540,000 customer accounts
• Served over 1 million people in 37 communities and 4 counties
• Eliminated 500,000 metric tons of CO2e
• Had 49 megawatts of local projects renewable energy generation projects, including over 12 MW in Richmond

MCE has also used a combination of tax free bonds and prepaid power purchase agreements to lower the costs of electricity in Richmond and elsewhere, and we are looking at also using tax free bonds to purchase renewable energy generation projects. MCE’s bond rating is very god, more than seven notches above that of PG&E.

Figure 2 - MCE 2021 Impact Report presentation

Figure 3 - Slide from MCE 2021 Impact Report

Figure 4 - MCE Zoom meeting from December 16, 2021

I also represent WCCTAC (West Contra Costa Transportation Advisory Committee) on the Contra Costa Transit Authority (CCTA). On December 15, 2021, we held our last meeting of the year. We had an interesting presentation about Dynamic Personal Micro Transit that is being tested at CCTA’s Gomentum Station.

Figure 5 - Slide from CCTA DPMT presentation