Issues · Electricity Costs
Your electric bill is too high. City Hall has more say over it than it admits.
← All issuesWhat you already know
Edison keeps raising rates. About 85 percent of Moreno Valley homes are Edison customers. State regulators approved an increase of roughly 10 percent on residential bills in the fall of 2025, with more increases already approved for every year through 2028.
City Hall takes a cut of every bill. Moreno Valley adds a 5.75 percent utility tax to every electric bill in the city. It brings in about $20 million a year across all utilities. Because it's a percentage, every time Edison raises your rates, City Hall collects more from you too.
Next door, Riverside pays far less. Riverside has owned its electric utility for more than a century. Its highest standard residential rate is under 25 cents a kilowatt-hour. Edison's residential rates run from about 30 cents to more than 50.
Moreno Valley built its own utility too. Most of us aren't on it. Moreno Valley Utility began serving customers in 2004. It only serves newly built areas: a little over 9,400 customers, roughly one home in seven. If you live in an established neighborhood like Sunnymead Ranch, you're on Edison, and the city's utility does nothing for your bill.
The city utility's next big project is for the warehouses. Its own business plan calls it "a driving force for local economic development." It is negotiating a site for a new substation inside the World Logistics Center, and it offers discounted rates to large employers.
What David will do
Stop City Hall from profiting on rate hikes.
Cap the city's utility tax on electricity, so that when Edison raises rates, City Hall doesn't automatically collect more from you.
Fight Edison's rate hikes where they're decided.
The city can formally oppose rate increases before state regulators. David wants Moreno Valley on the record, every time, on behalf of the 85 percent of us who pay those bills.
Give established neighborhoods a straight answer on public power.
An independent, public study of the real options for Edison neighborhoods: partnering with Riverside's utility, a community energy program, or extending the city utility. With real costs attached. David won't promise what he can't deliver. He will promise you the answer.
Residents before warehouses at the city utility.
Warehouses and data centers should pay the full cost of the substations and power lines they need. No household should pay more so a large user can pay less.
Open the books.
A public report every year showing what city utility customers, Edison customers, and Riverside customers pay, and where the city utility's money goes. The utility's own plan admits it hasn't surveyed its customers in years. Start there.
No data centers until existing customers are protected.
Data centers use enormous amounts of power. Before one is approved, the city should prove the families already on the system won't pay for it.
Why David
David has run a small business in Moreno Valley for decades. He knows what a power bill does to a family budget and to a shop trying to make payroll. And he knows the difference between a city that plans for the people who live here and one that plans for whoever is building next.
"Residents deserve leaders who listen, who care, and who act."