County Faces Its Darkest Hours, but It’s All a Plan to Save Money

This is one way the county is saving taxpayers’ money: occasional blackouts. In a deal with Southern California Edison, the County Government Center endured its first by-choice blackout Tuesday, just moments after the Board of Supervisors approved a $1.07-billion budget full of department cuts.

By agreeing to save the electric company some power, the county gets a much lower rate on energy, enough to save millions over time, Chief Deputy Administrator Bert Bigler said. This was the county’s first experience with the money-saving power outage.

Edison offers reduced rates to organizations willing to endure the blackouts when energy demands elsewhere in the state hit a peak.

“All we’re really doing is buying energy back at peak time,” said Fred Trueblood, a spokesman for Edison. “It’s a way to save a lot of money.”

The Board of Supervisors was able to finish its business before the lights went out about 3 p.m., but the three-hour brownout prompted officials to close several courtrooms at the Ventura Hall of Justice.

Sirens blared warnings of a power shutdown about 2:15 p.m., and about 20 minutes later the lights momentarily went out before a backup generator kicked in.

The outage briefly halted proceedings in the Juvenile Court trial of accused murderer Ryan Simas. But Judge Brian Back decided to push forward with testimony, under the dim lights of the generator.