On to November

THE CAMPAIGN FOR a November public power ballot measure got a major jump start Feb. 22 with a dramatic six-hour hearing before the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO). It featured a series of experts from all over the state who made the same basic point: public power is cheaper and more reliable, and it works in more than 2,000 U.S. cities. The unprecedented hearing – totally blacked out by the daily newspapers in town – should be the impetus for Sup. Tom Ammiano to begin work on recrafting his 2001 City Charter amendment, with input from public power activists, in plenty of time for the fall ballot.

As Rachel Brahinsky reports on page 13, many of the speakers were executives at California public power agencies – existing places where public power is saving customers money, places that are models for how San Francisco can get out from under the monopoly yoke of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. Their comments challenged a major lie that PG&E and its allies have put out in the past: the allegation that cities like San Francisco lack the expertise to run a complex electrical system. As Don Dame, assistant general manager of the Northern California Power Agency, put it, "There is no mystery to electricity.... the expertise you need to do it well exists."

LAFCO has scheduled several more hearings, and Sup. Matt Gonzalez should publicly demand that PG&E send a senior representative to attend and answer questions about the company's finances, its service failures, and how a bankrupt corporation plans to provide adequate electricity to San Francisco. Among other things, the LAFCO members should ask PG&E to commit, under oath, not to sell off its local distribution system to an out-of-town company.

Then LAFCO needs to commission and fund a complete feasibility and energy-options study – quickly. That means hiring a firm with a proven track record of working with public power agencies and the capacity to finish a complex study in plenty of time for it to be used as part of the fall campaign. The Feb. 22 hearing was an excellent start; now public power advocates have to begin organizing for the major battle ahead.

P.S. The Hearst blackout rolls on. The press box was empty at the LAFCO hearing, so Bay Guardian editor and publisher Bruce B. Brugmann walked into the nearby press room and found Hearst City Hall reporters Rachel Gordon and Ilene Lelchuk working in their offices on other stories. He asked if they were covering the hearings. No, they said, they did not cover public power. When he asked who did and where that person was, Lelchuk said that she didn't know and that she was not the assignment editor. Gordon said she was busy and closed her office door. Later during the hearing Brugmann saw Gordon chatting leisurely in the City Hall coffee room, signaling to everyone inside and outside City Hall that Hearst's City Hall reporter wasn't interested in a major public power story. During the hearing Brugmann e-mailed every Hearst editor and local reporter/columnist, asking why Hearst was not covering the hearing, but had received no response at press time.