Richmond's electricity provider under fire after grand jury report, CEO departure

The public agency that provides electricity to most Richmond residents lost its founding chief executive last week, one day after a county grand jury found that the agency had been mismanaged for years and that its board had repeatedly failed to oversee it.

Dawn Weisz, who co-founded MCE in 2010 and led it as it grew from a small Marin County experiment into an agency serving 1.8 million customers across four Bay Area counties, left June 17. MCE announced the departure the following day in a brief press release that gave no reason for her exit.

"The Board of Directors is confident in the agency's ability to seamlessly continue operations during this transition," the release said.

The departure came one day after the Marin County Civil Grand Jury released a 49-page report finding that MCE's board had failed to adequately oversee the $840 million agency and that management had taken advantage of the situation. The report found that staff repeatedly approved energy contracts without following the agency's own authorization rules, discouraged board members who sought financial information, and appointed a general counsel without required board approval.

Solar panels at MCE Solar One in Richmond, a 60-acre solar farm.

"We found a Board of Directors that rarely asserted its responsibility of governance, and management that appeared to be taking advantage of this situation," the report said. "We also found that controls for contract approval and other internal processes were not being followed."

The governance failures had direct financial consequences. MCE's audited financial statements show its electricity costs rose from $571 million in fiscal 2024 to $768 million in fiscal 2025, a 34 percent increase that turned a $144 million operating gain into a $12 million loss. MCE purchased a large volume of energy contracts in fall 2024 when prices were at their peak, and must charge customers those higher prices until the contracts expire.

A comparison by Marin's Coalition of Sensible Taxpayers, a watchdog group, found MCE's energy costs rose 30 percent that year while nine comparable California agencies averaged a 4 percent increase. MCE's cost per unit of electricity was the highest in the group.

Staff compensation rose 18 percent during the same fiscal year. The agency approved a further 12.5 percent increase for the following year before its board had passed that year's budget.

Those higher costs flow directly to customers. Most Richmond residents are enrolled in MCE by default, and a typical residential customer on MCE's standard plan is currently paying $196.86 a month, compared to $179.26 for an equivalent PG&E customer, a difference of about $211 a year, according to figures MCE publishes on its own website.

*MCE's rate comparison with PG&E is available at mcecleanenergy.org/compare-rates-and-options.*

MCE communications director Jenna Tenney said the gap opened in January when PG&E cut its own generation rates and simultaneously raised the fees it charges customers who left for MCE. MCE's board responded in April with a 14 percent rate reduction of its own.

"MCE does not guarantee that our rates will be lower than PG&E's," Tenney said in a written statement, "but we do our best to remain cost competitive while providing local programs and renewable energy generation that directly benefits our customers."

For lower-income customers, MCE said it offers a bill credit of $20 a month stacked on top of existing state discount programs for eligible households. The current funding runs through March 2027.

Separately, internal materials prepared for a June 24 MCE board workshop show that during hours when renewable generation is low, particularly mornings and evenings, the gap between MCE's contracted supply and actual customer demand is filled by power the agency's own documents describe as "probably natural gas." MCE said this is a standard condition shared by all electricity providers and that it is working to replace natural gas backup contracts with battery storage.

The California Public Utilities Commission found in its most recent report that 16 percent of MCE's backup power capacity comes from clean sources, compared to more than 30 percent for most of its Bay Area peers.

The same June 24 workshop materials listed options for the board to consider, including scaling back MCE's standard plan renewable target from 60 percent to whatever its existing long-term contracts can deliver, or to the minimum required by state law. Richmond customers are enrolled in the standard plan by default.

Richmond's seat on MCE's 34-member board is held by a city representative who does not sit on any of the agency's three standing committees, where decisions on rates, budgets, and energy contracts are worked through before reaching the full board. The grand jury named the Richmond City Council among the governing bodies invited to formally respond to its findings.

Mayor Eduardo Martinez and Councilmember Cesar Zepeda, listed in city records as Richmond's representative and alternate on the MCE board, did not respond to requests for comment.

Chief Operating Officer Vicken Kasarjian, who has held that role since 2018, will serve as acting CEO while the board searches for a permanent replacement.

MCE said it is reviewing the grand jury report and will respond within 90 days as required by state law.

YOU GET MORE WITH A PAID SUBSCRIPTION

Your subscription enables Grandview Independent to deliver more:

More time devoted to in-depth reporting
Longer, more comprehensive stories
Greater coverage of what matters to our community

Quality journalism costs money. Subscriptions allow us to keep reporting the stories that matter, without paywalls getting in the way of critical community information.

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE - Starting at just $10/month

FOLLOW US FOR BREAKING NEWS:
• Twitter: @GrandviewIndy
• Instagram: @GrandviewIndependent
• Facebook: @Grandview Independent