Four years of Kathleen Treseder brought higher power bills, deepening budget deficits and a habit of rewriting her own record. District 6’s first-ever councilmember shouldn’t be more of the same. Irvine City News Editorial Board | September 16, 2026

For the first time, District 6 — UCI, University Hills, the Jamboree/MacArthur corridor and the neighborhoods around them — will elect its own city councilmember rather than share a citywide seat. The choice is between incumbent Kathleen Treseder, a UCI ecology professor finishing her first term, and Scotty Hong, an Irvine Sustainability Commissioner and City Hall policy advisor making his first run for office. We reviewed both candidates’ records, their own campaign statements and four years of local reporting on the Treseder council. Our endorsement goes to Scotty Hong.

The Candidates, in Their Own Words
Treseder describes herself as “a scientist, not a politician,” a UCI climate professor who has “pushed for reforms to clean up City Government, including balancing our budget and banishing corrupt lobbyists.” Her campaign statement credits her with expanding green space, protecting public spaces from a “corporate giveaway,” and fighting to “solve the affordable housing crisis.” Below, we test those claims against the public record. Hong, 34, holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard and a Master of Public Administration from Cornell. He currently serves as an Irvine Sustainability Commissioner and as chief policy advisor to the mayor. His platform centers on expanding the free Irvine Connect shuttle, fixing traffic and sidewalks, increasing neighborhood policing and fire response, supporting affordable housing, and lowering electricity costs by pulling Irvine out of the Orange County Power Authority in favor of rooftop solar, battery storage and tree planting.

Power Bills, and a Vote to Pay Herself More
Treseder is Irvine’s representative — and currently vice chair — on the board of the Orange County Power Authority, the agency that supplies most Irvine households’ electricity. Under her watch, Irvine customers have paid OCPA rates higher than Southern California Edison’s for power that is measurably dirtier: an analysis by Irvine Community News and Views found OCPA’s default “Basic Choice” tier draws roughly 75 percent of its electricity from fossil fuels, versus about 43 percent for SCE’s comparable tier — nearly double the greenhouse-gas emissions per megawatt hour, from an agency that markets itself as clean power. The same outlet reported that Treseder described Irvine customers’ rates using OCPA’s cheapest published plan, even though most customers had defaulted into the pricier tier; the council didn’t fix that default enrollment until 2025. Then, on September 14, 2026 — with Irvine’s own budget in what the council itself calls a fiscal crisis — the OCPA board voted to add two meetings a month and raise each director’s per-meeting pay from $1,800 to $2,400, a combined $144,000 a year in new board compensation. According to The Liberal OC, Treseder voted yes. Residents can decide whether that squares with a candidate who says fiscal discipline is her top priority.

The Amphitheater She Says She Saved
Treseder’s campaign statement says that “when Live Nation wanted a sweetheart deal to profit off public spaces,” she “stopped the corporate giveaway.” It’s true that she voted with the council majority in July 2023 to kill contract talks with Live Nation over a permanent Great Park amphitheater — Voice of OC’s coverage at the time shows the fight was over the deal’s terms, not whether Irvine should have live music at all. What her campaign material leaves out is what came next: the city replaced Live Nation with City Managed booking of acts and management. By 2026, The Liberal OC was describing the arrangement as a “gamble” that hadn’t paid off, with thin programming and the marquee shows moving to festivals run by Live Nation’s own affiliate instead. The venue Treseder says she protected from a corporate giveaway now runs on a smaller, city-managed model that has struggled to book the acts that used to anchor the Great Park’s calendar — the opposite of the “win for residents” her campaign describes. The Live Nation deal she “stopped” would have paid the City over $8 million per year and provided top-tier acts. The current City Managed venue costs the City over $7 million per year. That’s a $15 million swing to the detriment of the City and Great Park.

Deficits, Then a Demand for Answers
Treseder’s statement credits herself with “balancing our budget.” The public record tells a different story. Irvine’s council — with Treseder’s vote — approved budgets carrying real shortfalls: a $6.3 million overspend covered from reserves for 2025-26, roughly $9 million more projected for 2026-27, and up to $37 million projected for 2027-28, according to Voice of OC and Irvine Watchdog; the Great Park’s own operating fund is running a separate $7.5 million deficit. To her credit, Treseder introduced the motion for a forensic audit of the spending once the shortfalls went public — it failed on a 3-3 tie. But a forensic audit after years of voting for the budgets that produced the deficit isn’t the same as fiscal discipline. It’s damage control. She also said she was “unaware of the $607,000 . . . . office budget she voted for“ and said, “Bottom line is everybody needs to cut spending as much as possible. I’m definitely willing to do that for my part.” (Voice of OC, June 18, 2026). She has made no cuts that we can find.

Practical Green vs. Performative Green
Treseder has built her council identity around climate policy — she co-founded OC Clean Power before her election and has led Irvine’s push toward electrification, including the March 2023 ordinance barring natural-gas hookups in new construction (paused months later after a federal appeals court struck down a near-identical Berkeley ordinance) and the broader Climate Action Plan agenda that has followed it. Irvine City News shares the goal of a cleaner grid. But mandates that restrict gas cooking have drawn criticism nationally — including from chefs and food writers who argue that high-heat gas cooking is central to Chinese, Southeast Asian and many other immigrant culinary traditions, and that a blanket ban treats those cooking practices as expendable. In a city as ethnically diverse as Irvine, that’s a real cost, not a footnote. Hong’s platform makes the same basic bet on clean energy — rooftop solar, battery storage, 100,000 more trees, a faster shift to electric transportation — without telling residents how they’re allowed to cook or heat their homes.

Why Irvine City News Endorses Scotty Hong
Treseder’s environmental commitments are sincerely held. But the record over her first term shows a pattern: a claim of fiscal restraint alongside votes for deficit budgets and a personal pay raise on a regional power board; a claim of stopping a “corporate giveaway” that traded a promoter’s private investment for a smaller, city-subsidized venue; and a climate agenda pursued through mandates rather than incentives, with real costs for residents who don’t share her priorities. She has a problem with honesty. Scotty Hong isn’t asking District 6 to abandon clean energy, affordability or good government — he’s promising to pursue all three without the mandates, the deficits and the self-dealing. District 6 is choosing its first-ever councilmember. It should choose a resident-first advocate over four more years of the status quo. Irvine City News endorses Scotty Hong for Irvine City Council, District 6.

SOURCING
This endorsement draws on reporting from Voice of OC, Irvine Watchdog, Irvine Community News and Views, The Liberal OC and OC Independent, on Irvine City Council and Orange County Power Authority meeting records, and on both candidates’ published campaign statements. Where the underlying facts are contested or where we render a judgment, that is identified as this board’s assessment.