CEA board to consider term limits for chair, vice chair

The Clean Energy Alliance Board of Directors will look to place term limits of two consecutive years at a time on the positions of board chair and vice chair.

A vote to implement a new term limit policy is tentatively scheduled for September.

As one of the newest Community Choice Aggregation programs in the San Diego region, and the state, the CEA is run by board members who are appointed from each of its member cities: Del Mar, Solana Beach, Carlsbad, San Marcos and Escondido.

“This is not urgent that we do anything at this point,” said Del Mar City Councilman Dave Druker, the board’s vice chair, during a Jan. 27 meeting.

Referring to other potential changes to the CEA’s joint powers agreement, he added, “Maybe throughout the year there’s some other changes that we want to make, and we can add those all together and make it by the end of the year.”

Druker was elected vice chair to replace Carlsbad City Councilwoman Priya Bhat-Patel, who was elected vice chair in December, but has since been replaced by Teresa Acosta as Carlsbad’s representative on the CEA board. Bhat-Patel is now a board alternate.

The current policy is for board members to elect the chair and vice chair every year, with no limits on how many times a board member can be re-elected. Amending the joint powers agreement would require at least a two-thirds vote by the board, according to CEA staff.

Solana Beach City Councilwoman Kristi Becker is the chair of the CEA board.

“I like how our JPA document is flexible, and I’m just not sure that it’s worth revising when we’re going to be choosing and adding new members each year and vote each year,” she said. “I get that two years does sound like a good number, but I’m just not sure why we would need to revise our JPA documents to state that.”

The CEA board has been holding meetings since November 2019 and began providing energy to residential and business customers earlier this year.

The agency will also add members to its Citizens Advisory Committee from the cities of Escondido and San Marcos, which were recent additions to the CEA.