March 5 2003

Hall Monitor

Running from Redevelopment: The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency has a horrendous 40-year record of displacing communities of color. From the Fillmore District to South of Market, the agency has given big developers cheap land – and forced low-income people out. So even though today's Redevelopment Agency isn't quite the monster it used to be, it's hard for anyone with much sense of local history to trust it.

Sup. Sophie Maxwell wants to take the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, which will soon be turned over to the city for housing and commercial development, out of the agency's hands. She's gotten state assemblymember Mark Leno to craft legislation that would transfer oversight of shipyard development proposals from the Redevelopment Agency – some of whose members have had ties to big developers with eyes on Hunters Point and all of whom are appointed by the mayor– to a special new six-member authority.

The legislation marks the second time in recent history that the Redevelopment Agency has lost control over a former military base. In 1997, when Mayor Willie Brown got state legislators to create a special agency charged with rebuilding Treasure Island, some government watchdogs sounded the alarm, because Brown managed to get singular control over what became the Treasure Island Development Authority (see "Treasure Chest," 7/23/97).

But in this case, Maxwell (and any future supervisor from District 10) would decide half of the appointments to the Hunters Point Shipyard Development Authority. She told us her picks would be longtime members of the local neighborhood. "This is an opportunity to make sure that the folks who live here influence the process," she said. (Savannah Blackwell)

Power-plant politics: Rumors are flying in the southeast part of town about the state's latest move to fix San Francisco's electricity problems. The word is that Mirant Corp. (which operates the Potrero Hill power plant) and the Independent System Operator (which runs the state power grid) have made a deal to invest millions of ratepayer dollars in retrofitting the largest generator at the site.

City officials were still developing a response to the news at press time. But community activists say the contract could give Mirant – one of several out-of-state generators named by state investigators for price gouging during the energy crisis – a firmer hold on the city's power production.

"It's bad news," John Borg, a resident of Potrero Hill and a member of the city's advisory task force on the power plant, told us. "What we wanted to do was phase out that power plant." The city is on track to install small backup power plants won from the Williams Corp. in a state settlement, and Borg said the Mirant deal doesn't necessarily fit in with that plan.

The rumor mill puts the price tag for the project – so far negotiated in secret – at about $30 million, but neither the ISO nor Mirant would confirm this at press time. "I don't think any final decisions have been made," Mirant spokesperson Patrick Dorinson told us. The deal will allow the company's plant to run cleaner and to operate for several extra years.

The likely long-term impact is unclear. Some say it will buy time – and provide backup – for the city's clean power-based Electricity Resource Plan. And it could cut air pollution in a highly polluted part of town.

But environmental-justice advocates fear the agreement could fatten Mirant's purse at a time when the company is pressing the state for a permit to build a new massive generator – on the same site. And residents are angered that they didn't receive official notice before the deal was cut: the ISO first mentioned the plan Feb. 24 when questioned by community advocates, even though it appears already to be nearly final.

"These decisions are being made behind closed doors," said Dana Lanza, executive director of Literacy for Environmental Justice. "There's no public process. And once they put multiple millions into it, where's the incentive to shut it down?"

Lanza and others are concerned the cash may help the company pull through a rough financial spot. Georgia-based Mirant has been struggling ever since the Enron fiasco rocked the power industry, and trade publications have pegged Mirant as likely to be next in line for bankruptcy. The Dow Jones Newswire recently reported that U.S. power generators are likely to be in financial hell for the next 5 to 10 years.

But even with the ISO's possible cash infusion, Mirant's future here is shaky. The company took the unusual step Feb. 26 of asking for an extension on hearings for its proposal to build a new plant here. Dorinson said it was a matter of "limited manpower." And one participant in the hearings told us the extension request is "blood in the water."