Auburn Councilmember Cheryl Maki

Cheryl Maki visited Right on Daily and invited me to call her, so I did. The following represents the results of a 20 minute conversation, this should be the first of a few I suspect.

I had made some critical comments regarding her position on the Pioneer Energy Rate situation. Maki explained her side of the story from the background of being a Business Major with a minor in Accounting. In her view, Pioneer Energy was not charging enough to be competitive or viable long term. Buying power comes in multiple forms, with Long Term and Short Term Contracts. In her view, having too much debt limits the flexibility of the utility to negotiate better deals.

Maki sits on the procurement committee for Pioneer Energy thus she has a real-time view of what is happening in the power market. She favored raising rates much more aggressively so that the debt could be paid off more quickly. In her mind, this would have made better sense long term. As it is Pioneer is 13-17% less than PG&E at the current time.

One critical issue with Pioneer Energy is Maki fears that they my have to borrow money to pay current bills, especially with the COVID insanity.

Maki has served three separate terms on the Auburn City Council! (I did not know this) She served in the Mid 90’s for one term, then two years later ran again and won again. IN 2016, she was the top vote getter for her third non-consecutive term.

Maki told me that she ran because there were some systemic problems in the governance of the City. The City Manager and City Finance Manager were both ultimately terminated shortly after Maki returned to the City Council. She also stressed that the council has been pretty unified despite Kirby’s episodes.

The reforms that Maki helped implement were a re-do of the City Budget to make it more transparent and easy to understand. They separated the Police and Fire Department, hiring separate chiefs for both – moves that caused an increase in service.

Maki was adamant with me that she supports Bill Kirby resigning from the City Council all together. She also confirmed that the hand-off of Mayoral duties from Bill Kirby to Daniel Berlant appears to have been arranged before last night’s meeting. She indicated to me that Berlant will do well as mayor because he can run a meeting and has an agreeable personality.

I asked Maki about claims I had heard from others about Kirby’s unstable behavior – she confirmed to me that Kirby has a pattern of bullying people, and attacking people he disagrees with.

The overriding issue here is the disruption in the good governance of Auburn and continuing to move the city forward. The Kirby saga is far from over.

I had indicated that Cheryl is a Registered Republican, this is not true, she is an NPP.

I am hoping to follow up with Maki soon.