ONCE AGAIN A supervisor is acting as a shill for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and trying to kill San Francisco's Local Agency Formation Commission, the only agency in city hall that has the mandate and the forum to push effectively for public power in San Francisco.

Sup. Sean Elsbernd, who is fast becoming the pro-PG&E, pro-downtown, anti-neighborhood supervisor from the West Portal district, slipped in a resolution at the Feb. 22 board meeting urging the California legislature to eliminate LAFCO. This is the dumbest of the many dumb ideas that have emerged from the city's annual structural budget crisis.

Elsbernd's move is not aimed at saving money, as his resolution claims. It is aimed at subverting on behalf of PG&E two major LAFCO policies: its push for community-choice aggregation (which could be a major source of savings for residents and businesses using PG&E's expensive power) and its push for real public power (which is the largest new source of potential revenue for the city, perhaps as much as $200 million or so a year).

Elsbernd claims without blushing that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and its Community Choice Aggregation Citizens Advisory Committee can "continue the work of pursuing public power begun by LAFCO." Bosh. The PUC, a historic PG&E bastion for eight decades or so, is controlled by appointees of mayors historically influenced by PG&E. Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed Susan Leal, always a PG&E ally, to be the PUC's general manager, and she promptly squeezed out Ed Smeloff, the only official in city hall with community-choice aggregation and public power experience.

Moreover, the PUC has refused to ever do a real feasibility report on the advantages of public power and replacing PG&E. So LAFCO has contracted with R.W. Beck, a nationally recognized consulting firm, to do the study. Beck has produced a preliminary study demonstrating major advantages for public power in San Francisco, and it is working on a more detailed one that is necessary to move public power forward. But Elsbernd's move could cut off the money for the study and probably ensure that it will not be completed. This would be a critical blow to public power. By contrast, Davis and other Sacramento County-area communities are moving toward linking up with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), with the help of an excellent Beck feasibility report.

The most recent example of LAFCO's value as an independent agency came at a Feb. 4 LAFCO hearing. Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, a leader in the public power movement who is breathing life into LAFCO as the new chair, hauled in the PUC to find out why its critical community aggregation study was stalled and in danger of missing a deadline to get state approval by June or risk losing its ability to make the program work economically. The political point: LAFCO blew the whistle on the PUC, forced it into the sunshine, and made it accountable to get the study done on time – or else.

If Elsbernd were serious about saving money, he would be pushing not to kill LAFCO but to make it stronger and to see that it is properly funded and that the R.W. Beck feasibility report is completed. He would work for community-choice aggregation, breaking PG&E's scandalously low franchise fee, pushing for real public power at Treasure Island and for the city's residents and businesses, cutting off PG&E's expensive private power, and eliminating the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars PG&E jerks out of the city's economy each year (according to our study, "PG&E's $620 Million Shakedown," 9/4/02). This is a major reason the downtown has been so sharp, the upturn so slow, and the future so mixed with PG&E still the Baron on the Crag in city hall.

Elsbernd should stop shilling so ignominiously for PG&E and its downtown allies. The board should kill his resolution with bugles blowing. Our reps in Sacramento (state senator Carole Migden and state assemblymembers Mark Leno and Leland Yee) should say publicly that they will have nothing to do with this subversive caper. And the board should take Elsbernd's move as a wake-up call and move immediately by resolution and action to declare that public power is the city's top energy priority and that the city must create a public power agency to bring our own Hetch Hetchy public power to our own residents and businesses and bring the city into full and complete compliance with the federal Raker Act of 1913 and a U.S. Supreme Court decision of 1940 (see many Bay Guardian editorials and stories for background at www.sfbg.com/News/pgande).

P.S. PG&E is terrified: PG&E is terrified these days as the public power movement gains serious momentum around Sacramento. Even the San Francisco Chronicle picked up the story. The Woodland City Council voted 4-0 to proceed with annexation to SMUD. (The mayor had to recuse himself because his company has a large contract with PG&E.) A subcommittee in West Sacramento recently voted 5-1 to recommend annexation to the city council. It's likely Davis will support annexation, since it has a strong and growing public power movement. PG&E is on the defensive, and it is now time for the public power forces to crank up in San Francisco and once again put on the hard pressure with the right moves to kick PG&E out of city hall for good.