Faces of Ava: Jack Balch, the Bottom Line Mayor of Pleasanton

Jack Balch is the Chair of Ava’s Board of Directors and the new mayor of Pleasanton. He draws from his day job in finance and building management to apply a bottom-line view to Ava.

Jack Balch is a bottom-line kind of guy.

As a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), accredited Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA), and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of his family’s building management business, dollars and cents are his livelihood.

He applies that bottom-line focus to the Ava Community Energy Board of Directors and to the City of Pleasanton, where he was just elected mayor.

Pleasanton, like many communities, is facing a tight budget. Sales tax revenues have declined as shopping malls like the Stoneridge Shopping Center have fallen out of favor, while city operational and pension costs must be addressed. 

“As a CPA, I am laser-focused on the budget,” he says. “As mayor, my focus is making sure Pleasanton thrives. We need smart economic development that supports businesses, innovation, and delivers services our residents expect.”

“At the same time, I don’t think growth is the only answer,” he says. “We also need to make some prudent spending decisions that will keep Pleasanton strong for the next generation.”

Balch’s election as mayor may have been boosted by his opposition to measure PP, which would have imposed Pleasanton’s first city sales tax, at 0.5%. He was the only city council member to vote against putting it on the ballot, and it was rejected at the polls.

Balch sees the bottom line value of Ava as well. Ava is now contracting for one gigawatt (one billion Watts) of renewable energy projects and has saved customers more than $140 million since 2018 through its Bright Choice power mix and customer bill credits. 

Balch also sees the value of choice that Ava offers. “I’m pretty excited about the Ava mission—hook line and sinker,” he says. “Providing choice is the whole premise of CCAs—you can stay with PG&E, you can choose us, you can choose Renewable 100. We need to give options to our residents to make good choices.”

Pleasanton joined Ava’s Joint Powers Authority in 2019, two years after the agency was originally formed, and service began in 2021. A key motivation, Balch says, was the opportunity to implement the city’s climate action plan.

“Ava helps us deliver on our climate action plan by offering carbon-free power,” he says. “I have a 16-year-old son, so making smart energy decisions and addressing climate change are very real for me.”

“At the same time, affordability matters for many of our residents. That’s why it’s important that Ava offers the Bright Choice option which is 5% less than PG&E rates,” he adds. “And with Ava moving all of its plan options towards carbon-free energy, we’re building a cleaner future.”

According to Pleasanton’s most recent climate action plan, transportation accounts for almost two-thirds of the city’s carbon emissions.

“We have lots of electric car owners in Pleasanton, and a growing group of people who want to power them with clean energy,” Balch says. “We set our default subscription option to Renewable 100,” he says, referring to the all-wind-and-solar clean energy option that customers can choose instead of Bright Choice.  “Very few people opted down or out.”

Between 2005 and 2017, Pleasanton’s emissions declined 28%, exceeding the emissions reduction target established in the first plan, adopted in 2012. Accounting for a growing population and economy, the community achieved a per capita emissions reduction of 37%. 

The City’s 2023 climate action plan update counts Ava as an “existing ongoing action” that will keep emissions down going forward, at an estimated 269,600 tons. That is second only to a Zero Emissions Vehicle Infrastructure Plan that will “strategically expand EV and other zero-emissions fueling infrastructure throughout the community, electrify portions of the municipal fleet, and bolster community outreach and funding.” 

Ava will play a big role in the electric vehicle work as well, such as on truck charging, incentives, and procurement of fleet vehicles. The City could also require new housing units to include EV charging capabilities, such as a charger or a 220 Volt outlet in the garage or parking area; encourage existing gas stations to install EV chargers; and provide preferential parking for EVs in public parking lots.

Another key climate issue is buildings. As a building manager, Balch sees the value in Ava’s work on building electrification as well.

Balch grew up in the area, attending Sunol Glen Elementary School and participating in the Sunol 4-H Club, showing animals at the Alameda County Fair many times during his youth. He even won the Novice Swine Showmanship award at the 1992 Alameda County Fair.

After earning a BS in Business Administration at California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo in 1999, Balch spent six years at Ernst & Young (EY), a “big four” accounting firm. 

In 2005 he joined Balch Enterprises, his family’s commercial real estate & property management firm located in Hayward, as Chief Financial Officer. The company provides property management and leasing services of warehouse and industrial space to small businesses.

Jack’s grandfather, Sherman Balch, started the business building homes in Walnut Creek in the 1950s. Over the decades his sons and then grandsons joined the company, as they branched out into commercial and industrial development, ownership, and building management services. 

The company owns and operates approximately 2 million square feet of building space in the East and South Bay, mostly small and mid-sized “concrete tilt-up” buildings. They have over 200 tenants, everything from auto body shops to Taekwondo studios. Most of their buildings are in the Ava service territory, plus San Jose.

While some of their buildings already have solar, Balch says it can be complicated to put solar on buildings of the size they manage, due to all the other things on the roof. “Ava’s clean power helps give our buildings a small carbon footprint, even if they can’t have solar,” he says.

He finds that his tenants want to help the environment but it needs to be economically feasible. “The loss of net metering for solar projects is a problem for affordability,” he says. “A lot of tenants are willing to try things if they don’t cost too much, so the rising price of electricity can make it hard to go electric. Net metering enabled them to save money with solar.”Another barrier is the reliability problem that parts of Pleasanton face, due to wildfire safety shutoffs and weak rural grids. “That is undermining trust in electrification,” he says. “We have many residents working from home so they do not like the grid going out. A lot of them are buying Costco natural gas generators as backup. How do we convince them to give up fossil fuels? That will be a long-term challenge for Ava.”

Balch is excited that Ava is expanding into the Central Valley, with Stockton, Lathrop, and San Joaquin County joining soon. He has some simple advice for civic leaders there: “The water is great, jump in!”

“The San Joaquin communities have some unique opportunities since they have land for solar, and big warehouses like Prologis with lots of roof space.”

Valley cities are going to have a significantly different energy profile, given high summer temperatures driving air conditioning demand in the summer. (See the energy data profile of Stockton and Lathrop in this issue.) This could make Ava’s solar and storage options more valuable in the Valley.

The Valley Link train project is another opportunity for climate action. The line, which could start construction next year, would connect the East Bay with the Valley, running from the Dublin/Pleasanton BART station to Stockton, over the Altamont Pass. Valley Link is exploring options to make the line a zero-carbon emitter, possibly running on hydrogen produced from renewable electricity at a facility in Tracy.

“Pleasanton is a job importer,” Balch says, “so reducing transportation from cars will help cut emissions here.

“I look at the climate impacts that are coming and my advice is to be bold,” he says. “Promote choice, inform your residents, enable them to take action. Lots of our residents like that they are on Renewable 100. Before Ava, they had no real option to do that.”