2 UCAN Directors Resign Over Ouster of Director

Two directors of the Utilities Consumer Action Network resigned Thursday in protest of the board’s firing this week of Executive Director Garry DeLoss.

Fred Nagle and Robert Spanjian each cited the DeLoss firing as being behind their decision to resign as directors of UCAN, the two-year-old group that acts as a “watchdog” over San Diego Gas & Electric.

“It saddens me greatly to submit my resignation,” wrote Nagle, who is the mayor of La Mesa. He described the DeLoss firing as “irrational” and “thoughtless” and termed the decision a “personal vendetta by a bare majority of the board.”

DeLoss was fired late Monday on a 5-4 vote.

Spanjian, who is in the process of selling his San Marcos-based Spanjian Sportswear to an Iowa retailing firm, said he resigned from UCAN’s board because current directors cannot reach unanimous consent on key policy issues.

UCAN Chairman Jay Powell said he was “disappointed” by the resignations and that the board will soon meet to “search for some people who will be of the same caliber” as Nagle and Spanjian.

DeLoss’ firing capped months of personality clashes and policy disagreements between DeLoss and what observers describe as the “activist” segment of the UCAN board.

In addition to personal animosities between DeLoss and some directors, the board had questioned DeLoss’ concentration on arguing legal cases against SDG&E; rate-increase requests before the state Public Utilities Commission in San Francisco.

In addition to the rate-hike cases, directors also wanted to increase UCAN’s local visibility as a citizen-activist network, according to UCAN sources.

Legal costs up to $10,000 per month are being pared back, officials said, as the group seeks to hire in-house legal counsel for its PUC caseload.

DeLoss has expressed outrage over his firing, charging that directors’ outside community interests have interfered with their roles as UCAN directors.