The County Board of Supervisors voted on Tuesday to spend $825,000 more on outside legal experts to wage warfare with Southern California Edison, both for the power outages during high-risk fire weather and the Montecito debris flow. In the first instance, the California Public Utilities Commission is making rules to regulate the new regime of power shutoffs, and the county has hired law firm Goodin, MacBride, Squeri and Day to participate on its behalf. The second has the county doubling down on the Thomas Fire and Debris Flow litigation, increasing attorney firm Meyers Nave’s payment limit from $750,000 to $1.5 million. Supervisor Peter Adam dissented on both votes.
Adam — who sat alone at the dais in Santa Maria, participating by video — abstained from each vote, saying he found it humorous that the pot was calling the kettle black. “We are being critical of their maintenance,” he said. “We’ve got $70 million in deferred maintenance on our own assets.” He stated the best way forward was to ensure that the circumstances that led to the debris flow didn’t happen again. “And what do we do when they go bankrupt?” he asked. Pacific Gas & Electric, which supplies the North County with power, filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in January.
Supporting Adam was Andy Caldwell, who is running for Congress and attends county supervisor meetings regularly for the Coalition of Labor, Agriculture and Business. Caldwell attacked the supervisors for "intellectual dishonesty": “You want them to keep the power on, even if there’s a wind event,” he said, “but on the other hand you sued them for fires associated with a wind event.” He accused the county of “complicity with fires and debris flows,” saying, “You can’t have it both ways.”