Gov. Gavin Newsom Wednesday appointed Marcie Edwards, former general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, to the state’s recently created California Wildfire Safety Advisory Board.
The board, created in July with the state’s passage of Assembly Bill 1054, also includes advisers from San Diego, La Mesa, San Francisco and Elk Grove. The panel will advise the California Public Utilities Commission’s Wildfire Safety Division on improving wildfire safety and regulating safety measures taken by investor-owned utility companies like Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric.
Edwards, 62, of Castaic, is currently the principal of MLE Consulting Inc. In addition to managing the LADWP from 2014 to 2017 and holding multiple positions in the department from 1976 to 2000, she served as Anaheim city manager from 2013 to 2014 and the general manager of Anaheim Public Utilities from 2001 to 2013.
Also Wednesday, Newsom appointed California Statewide Communities Development Authority Executive Director Catherine Bando to the California Catastrophe Response Council, which was created in July with the passage of AB 111. The board oversee the management of a state fund that will compensate claimants affected by wildfires that are sparked by equipment owned by a public utility company.
Bando, 64, of Los Angeles, has led the CSCDA since 2014 and has served as the principal of Bando Public Finance since 2012. She has also served in executive and management positions at Citigroup Global Markets, J.P. Morgan, Greencoast Capital Partners and ABC Capital Markets.
Edwards is a Republican and Bando is a Democrat, according to the governor’s press office. Neither will require Senate confirmation.
Edwards will receive $400 per diem for serving on the board, while Bando will not be compensated.