A new progressive agenda - Page 5

A series of community forums helped us craft a platform for the next mayor

09.13.11 - 5:32 pm | Tim Redmond |

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New construction in Mission Bay: Are we building a community -- or building a city for rich people?

GUARDIAN PHOTO BY MIRISSA NEFF

3. Planning should be for the community, not developers.

4. Energy efficiency programs should be targeted to disadvantaged communities.

5. Pay attention to the urban food revolution, encourage resident owned farmers markets. Use unused public land for local food and community gardens.

6. Provide complete information on what parts of the city are fill, and stop allowing development in areas that are going to be inundated with sea level rise.

7. Prioritize local distributed generation of electricity and public ownership of the power grid.

8. Change Clean Energy San Francisco from a purchasing pool system to a generating system.

Comments

That Leaves No Funds For Capital Upkeep & Improvement

We of course, cannot do that, because if all savings were mandated to go to consumers, there would then be no funds available to maintain the system, and to do capital improvements in order to expand the system and incorporate renewables and efficiency.

I'm fine with a mandate that keeps all of the savings out of the City general fund, and that instead all revenues would have to be kept within the utility itself, but mandating that all savings go to ratepayers would undermine the whole system by underfunding infrastructure.

Posted by Eric Brooks on Sep. 19, 2011 @ 12:47 pm

No, the profits.

Obviously PG&E makes a profit (well, maybe not, they went bankrupt, but let's ignore that for now).

That profit is what's left after the costs you cited have been deducted from the revenues.

So, if PG&E make, say, a thousand a year net profit on each household, then each household gets a thousand off their bills. It should be "revenue neutral" for the City - not a cash cow for their favorite pork project and subway to nowhere.

The formula might be more complex than that, but those computations are already made in determining the utility rates and what's a fair profit for PG&E. We're already doing the sums - the only difference is that we the people get the money, and not Chris Daly.

Do it that way and you have my vote. As long as you can also borrow the capital to buy the utility at a fair market price, funded by revenue bonds that won't touch the general fund.

But not a penny to the politicians. They can't be trusted.

Posted by PaulT on Sep. 19, 2011 @ 1:15 pm

Paul Tea Suggests That PG&E Is Not Making A Profit!!! :)))))))))

Now that you have clearly established that you are completely out of touch with reality by hilariously claiming that PG&E might not be making a profit, I think we're done.

And the San Bruno explosion shows that PG&E infrastructure is under capitalized showing that we need to ensure the ability to fully capitalize a municipal system.

Now, go ahead and get in the last word, last word boy...

Posted by Eric Brooks on Sep. 19, 2011 @ 1:45 pm

My Guess Is That We Are Both Correct About Sklar

My guess is that we are both right. Before he was on the SFPUC Sklar was apparently pro municipal power. But once Newsom appointed him to the SFPUC that definitely changed.

Posted by Eric Brooks on Sep. 19, 2011 @ 11:42 am

Pension take away plan

I hope all the voters out there read both pension measures and once you get over your outrage vote no on both C and D. There are nothing progressive about either.

Posted by Guest Brenda Barros on Sep. 22, 2011 @ 7:15 am

Well...Prop D is more progressive than Prop C.

Prop D:

-Prop D has a sliding scale for contributions while Prop C asks the same of a 50k worker and a 100k worker.

-Prop D exempts < $50k workers (Prop C copied this.)

-Prop D doesn't touch anyone's health care while Prop C seeks to reduce employee and retiree health care by flipping control of the Health Services Board. City retirees loathe Prop C.

So yes, if you believe no reforms are needed you vote for neither. If you are voting for the more progressive one, you vote for Prop D. City employees who earn less than 100k and are convinced one of the two will pass, will be voting for Prop D.

No one will "read" Prop C - it's 285 pages....

Posted by Guest on Sep. 22, 2011 @ 10:13 am