Fred Keeley (born May 9, 1950) is a politician in California, U.S. and serves as the current mayor of Santa Cruz, CA.
Keeley served for eight years as a member of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, prior to his election to the California Assembly.
[2] In the November general election, Keeley won about 57% of all votes cast against Republican Jim Davis.
[3] During his first term in the Assembly, Keeley chaired the Budget Subcommittee on Resources, where he advanced legislation, known as the Marine Life Management Act of 1998.
[5] This is the highest-ranking member of the Speaker's leadership team and, as such, Keeley was responsible for the development of the majority party's important policy initiatives.
[7] In late 2000 and early 2001, the California electricity crisis manifested itself with rolling blackouts in many parts of the state.
[8] This position had three primary duties: to establish a triage system for dealing with day-to-day, minute-to-minute emergencies that were direct outgrowths of the lack of electricity; to form a policy group, both at the staff and legislator level, to sort out those ideas that were being advanced to solve the problem, and make recommendations to the Speaker and the governor, on how to tackle the many fronts on which this crisis was expanding; and to be the author of the agreed-upon package of legislation that would try to tame the energy crisis monster.
[9] In order to stabilize prices, and to assure a reliable supply of electricity, Keeley became the author of the State of California's solution so California participate in the market by buying the so-called net short position each day, and to sell that electricity to utility customers.
While there was much criticism of the strategy at the time, it is clear that it had the desired effect: to wit, it stabilized prices and assured supply.
Then-Governor Gray Davis asked Keeley to join his cabinet as Director of the California Department of Finance.
Keeley also made a planned gift of $250,000 to UCSC to support the campus's STEPS Institute for Innovation in Environmental Research.
[12] Since Fall 2006, Keeley has taught courses as a part-time faculty member in the Department of Political Science at San Jose State University.
In addition to his work as treasurer, Keeley is a member of the board of directors of the California League of Conservation Voters, the state's premiere environmental political action organization.