By Rachel Brahinsky

In an unexpected move, a committee of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association voted 6-4 July 26 to recommend that SPUR endorse a public power measure, sources who attended the meeting said. The vote signals that Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which had taken the support of groups like SPUR for granted in the past, could have a tougher time this year pulling in allies for its fight to kill the ballot measure in November, when voters will be asked to create a new public power authority.

SPUR's full board of directors – made up of some 60 people – will vote on the committee's recommendation Aug. 21.

The vote came after a debate in which Greg Asay, aide to Sup. Sophie Maxwell, and Brad Benson, aide to Sup. Tom Ammiano, told the committee that the measure was designed to help the city shut down the polluting Hunters Point power plant and stop the expansion of the Potrero Hill power plant. Maxwell and Ammiano are the measure's cosponsors.

Arguing against the measure on behalf of PG&E were Jim Sutton, of the law firm Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello, Mueller, and Naylor, and Judy deFreitas, from lobbying company Solem and Associates. Sources say the two, calling themselves San Franciscans Against the Blank Check, focused on the potential cost of taking over PG&E's system. But the measure calls for taking over PG&E's infrastructure only if doing so will not force a rate hike for customers above PG&E's rates.

That was just one of the distortions the two put forth in a flyer that foreshadows the arguments voters are likely to hear leading up to the election. As Mayor Willie Brown's power policy advisor Ed Smeloff, who attended the SPUR meeting, told us, "They damaged themselves by being so outrageous in their arguments." The mayor has not taken a position on the measure.

One defining feature of the power measure is that it would give the city the ability to build new, cleaner power plants of its own – making it possible to close the Hunters Point plant.

Sutton and deFreitas maintained at the SPUR meeting that a new transmission line would let the city close the plant.

It's true that a new line to bring power up from the south would make the city's energy grid more reliable. But, as Smeloff said, "PG&E knows better. They know that new resources need to be built here more quickly. And they're getting in the way of making that happen. If the city is going to close the plant, we need to get started yesterday."

Another faulty argument coming from PG&E's people: With the new power agency proposed in the measure, ratepayers would lose control over their bills. That statement is more than a little ironic, since right now the utility is proposing, in its bankruptcy plan, to permanently remove public oversight over rates. "Here they're trying to take remaining generation outside of any review and allow themselves to charge any rate the market will bear," Smeloff said. "Ammiano's proposal has a very detailed rate process in it. PG&E just wants to destroy the henhouse and let the foxes run free."

Meanwhile, public power supporters, pleased with their progress at SPUR, said they were ramping up their own campaign, anticipating that PG&E and its allies would likely invest at least as much to spread misinformation as they did in 2001. In that campaign, more than $2 million was spent to send public power to a narrow defeat of little more than 500 votes.