By Matthew Hirsch

In one of her first big decisions as general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, Susan Leal has pushed out the agency's top solar energy and public power expert.

Ed Smeloff, assistant general manager for power policy – who's on leave promoting regime change in the White House – informed the Bay Guardian that he'd been the victim of regime change at home. "I will be leaving the [PUC] on Nov. 12," Smeloff wrote from Ohio in an e-mail. "I was hired as an 'at pleasure' employee and as such no reason need be given for my release. And none has been given to me by Susan Leal."

Leal wouldn't explain her reasoning, telling us, "It's a personnel matter, and Ed can discuss it if he wants to."

Smeloff is a solar power guru of national stature who had overseen construction of the largest city-owned solar plant in the country at the Moscone Center and plans for another major solar project at the Southeast Wastewater Treatment Plant, which Leal announced just last month. He also worked for the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, a successful public power system, and laid the groundwork here for community-choice aggregation, which will allow the city to purchase power wholesale on behalf of its residents.

"Ed Smeloff was the only SFPUC staff person ever with a proven track record in the public power movement ... and a visionary who could explain local control of our energy future independent of PG&E," said Mark Loy, an executive committee member of the San Francisco Labor Council. "I fear it's back to preparing the SFPUC for burial."

E-mail Matthew Hirsch at matthew@sfbg.com.