At this morninga s meeting there was a new face on the frontline with the City of Auburn’s new Mayor Bridgett Powers taking the seat formerly filled by Matt Spokely. Spokely gives up his microphone for a seat amongst the peasants following 52 weeks that was generally uneventful, which in the current political climate, is not necessarily a bad thing. The meeting was also fairly uneventful so if I veer off track you know why.
Powers pretty much just introduced herself along with Auburn Vice Mayor, Cheryl Maki, who Powers mentioned will help her throughout the next 52 weeks due to her previous experience as Mayor of Auburn.
Sitting next to Powers was Placer County Supervisor Jennifer Montgomery, who had to leave early in order to make her presence known at the Harriet White Bell Road Ceremony this morning. Montgomery has previously mentioned White as a mentor and someone that she looks up to, so it’s no surprise that it was important for Montgomery to be out the door by 7:30 in order support her friend.
The only topic that stuck this morning was the upcoming Pioneer Community Energy switch over from PG&E. As many of you already know, you will or have already, received a letter in the mail notifying you that you will no longer be making energy payments to PG&E but instead to the new power distributer, Pioneer Community Energy. In a bit of a strange twist that had many in the room confused was the option given within this letter to opt out of the Pioneer switch and stay with your current provider PG&E. However, if that is the option you prefer you must respond to the letter indicating your wish.
Simply put, the people wanted to know why and what benefit this was having on the county as well as the people who live in it. The answers given, honestly, were not extremely persuasive other than a 3% decrease in price which sounds nice seemed to be paired with some fine print. Also, a question was raised about what would happen if you use solar power and the answer given was that solar power had not quite been worked out yet or had not been fully determined. However, a letter has already been sent out notifying you of this switch whether you have solar power or not. So, I guess there will be more to come on this topic.
Lastly, the new leader of the Placer Visitor Center made a brief presentation that was basically used to introduce herself to the community that she will be serving. Rebecka Evans is challenged with the task of heading up the Placer County Visitor’s Center located on High Street right next to the Chambers office. I can tell you she is off to a fantastic start which evident by visiting the newly redesigned website https://www.visitplacer.com/.
