Edison to Address Council on Outages

Southern California Edison representatives will appear before the City Council on Wednesday to explain what they will do to end a rash of power outages in the area.

After complaints last month from Camarillo officials about frequent outages, the electric company found there are 19 circuits in the Oxnard Plain with a power failure record that is much higher than average. Five of those circuits are in Camarillo.

Officials from the electric company say there is no single cause for the power failures.

Edison set aside about $1 million last month to deal with outage problems in Camarillo, Oxnard and Port Hueneme. Improvements for these areas will take from three months to several years to complete, said Rudy Gonzales, Edison’s regional manager for Camarillo.

Projects to be completed within three months include trimming trees and fixing underground connecting devices.

“The city will see immediate improvement in service reliability” from the short-term projects, Gonzales said.

Longer-term projects include replacing or redesigning all 19 circuits that have troubled records. Also, electrical poles and wires will be relocated in an attempt to reduce accidents.

City Council members decided Nov. 19 to require Edison’s representatives to meet with the city manager regularly to provide progress updates.

Gonzales said the company’s executive vice president plans to meet with representatives from Camarillo, Oxnard and Port Hueneme on Thursday at 9 a.m. in the Camarillo council chambers to show Edison’s “commitment to improve service.”