Officials seek answers after Monte Rio community center was not opened during December outage

During staff reports Administrator Marina McTaggart said she had received inquiries from the community about why Pacific Gas & Electric did not open the Monte Rio Community Center as a public resource center during the prolonged power outage over the Christmas holiday. Marina said she contacted the District 5 office and was referred to PGE; PGE responded that the decision to open the Guerneville Senior Center instead was made by the Sonoma County Office of Emergency Services. Marina said she will continue to follow up with the county.

Board Chair Steve Baxman told the board that PGE dropped off 100 kits containing a blanket, phone charger, candy bar and water at the Monte Rio Fire Station during the outage. Staff also reported that MRRPD had a prior contract arrangement with PGE to open the Community Center as a public resource center in cases of prolonged outages; Marina said the district was not contacted for this recent event and that she had followed up with the PGE employee who initiated prior contact without receiving a response so far.