• WCE Bankruptcy Update and Reentry Fee

I'm sure that you've heard that WCE has filed for bankruptcy. There was a press release from WCE on May 24th.

LINK TO PRESS RELEASE

If you're saying, "Yeah, but what is WCE, I've never heard of it?" you might as well exit this blog now, or, if you do want to know more, click on the key words at the bottom of the blog. 

But, Since I'm a sooooper nice guy and all, I'll give you a basic primer: WCE is short for Western Community Energy. It was adopted by the Wildomar city council in 2018 and went into effect in Spring of 2020. The only way to keep your original power company (SCE) was to opt out of WCE. 

That wasn't some diabolical plot, it's mandatory for such schemes to be "opt out" instead of "opt in". 

If that rankles you, look no further than the misguided blue team in Sacramento that has been ruining this state with their one-sided stranglehold for more than a generation. If you voted for them, you voted to be "opted in".

In less than a year WCE went belly up.

Was it bad luck due to Covid, coupled with the State allowing unpaid bills to be treated like junk mail? 

Maybe.

Was it an unwise decision to have the city join WCE, where even the county flatly rejected the notion when it was presented to them, not to mention the other 12 member cities of WRCOG (the impetus behind WCE)? 

I'll hazard a "yes" response to the above question... obviously! 

There were six Riverside County cities that opted their residents into WCE.

During the June 9th city council meeting there was a WCE update. 

If you listened to that meeting, it was reasonable to conclude that all the WCE customers were going to be returned to SCE as if they never were part of WCE.

That's what appeared to be the verbatim quote by WRCOG's interim director, "for those of you that are WCE customers going back to SCE, we worked very hard so that you go back in at the standard rates, it's as if you were never part of WCE."

Under the circumstances, what more could one ask for, I was satisfied.

What could be clearer than that?

"As if you were never part of WCE"

But, as always, there are plenty of flies for what little ointment there may be in a given situation.

This topic was being discussed on Facebook and I gave out inaccurate information that I heard at the city council meeting (or thought I heard). 

Here is a screenshot of the exchange. Not sure if it's legible or not, or if it's interesting or not. You decide.

Here is a larger version of the slide from the meeting that was mentioned above... still not sure if it's legible on your device or not.

I hope the above graphic is legible. It was part of the presentation during the city council meeting. What was not gone over in detail was a "reentry" fee, which is clearly listed in among the bullet points.

The last bullet point says, Initial indications are that SCE rates with the reentry fee will still be below WCE's rates with recently adopted rate increases.

What is it that I'm reading? 

The whole point of WCE, as it was sold anyway, was LOWER RATES.

Imagine that, SCE rates, including a yet to be determined reentry fee, will be lower than WCE's rates... I guess that's a way of selling this as "good news"?

Below is the email that I wrote seeking clarification:

Residents are discussing the return to SCE and I happily let them know that we were told during the presentation that all customers will return to SCE as if they’d never left, as we were told in the meeting.

 

Then a resident suggested that I look at a slide that was part of the presentation that had six bullet points (attached). The speaker didn’t go over the last 4 bullet points which specifically said that returning WCE customers would be paying a reentry fee.

"There will be a reentry fee that SCE will charge to returning customers."

 

That was not made clear.

 

I want to gather all the facts before drawing conclusions, but a reentry fee is not compatible with "for those of you that are WCE customers going back to SCE we worked very hard so that you go back in at the standard rates it's as if you were never part of WCE."

 

Will there be another WCE update at the next city council meeting? 

This was the response I got from the presenter of the WCE update at the city council meeting. 

I'm not naming him because he's the interim director of WRCOG, and had NOTHING to do with this fiasco. He had it dropped in his lap when the former director suddenly developed retirement fever and stepped down. 

In terms of the transition, we were referring to the rates.  WCE customers are going back to Edison at Edison’s standard rates, which are they same they would be paying as if they never left.  That was an unknown for a while since SCE is allowed to charge them higher rates under the regulatory process and we worked with SCE, CPUC, and others to have customers go back at the standard rates.

 

SCE is allowed by law to recover their costs for bring WCE customers back to SCE.  We don’t know what those costs will be.

 

The procedure for recovering those costs is that SCE must first bill WCE for those costs.  We believe we can address them through the bankruptcy process but that is to be determined.  Our other option is to seek State funding, which we are currently working on.  If neither of those two are successful, there is a possibility that SCE could seek to recover those costs from the customers. 

 

We anticipate that process could take 3 months, 6 months or even longer.  For right now, saying it is as if they had not left SCE is a correct statement.

My apologies for not being clearer in my presentation to the City Council.

So why am I writing this?

First and foremost is to get the word out. 

Again, if you're among the number that has never heard of WCE, take another blue pill and go back to sleep.

For the rest of you, I'm very displeased that the WCE update was done in such a way as to allow for confusion on the matter of how much this is going to cost people that had NO INTEREST in this in the first place.

There is no word about how much this bankruptcy will cost or who will ultimately pay for it. It will be many months before it gets through the courts. 

One thing you can count on is that creditors will not just roll over on this saying, "Aw shucks, bummer that WCE fell like a house of cards on a windy day... just forget about the money we put into it."

We can always hope for the best, that the courts will produce a ruling that will safeguard the innocent folks that had nothing to do with any part of this short lived nightmare.

But "hope" is never a good strategy to live by, so I don't personally factor such things into my planning... we shall see.

Last, if this blog raises some eyebrows among my colleagues, my responsibility is to the residents, and I'm not going to blink even if that means I put myself in some rather uncomfortable cross hairs. 

Below is the video to the city council meeting. This item begins at 36:30 of the video.

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What is this "complete truth" that is spoken about? What is a "complete truth" to begin with? 'Truth' is not divisible. A half truth must eventually become a whole falsehood.

– EG Marshall (CBSRMT)

Wildomar Rap isn't divisible and rejects all attempts therein.  

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