AMAZING. SAN Francisco Public Utilities Commission general manager Susan Leal, who has consistently thrown boulders in the path of any effort at kicking Pacific Gas and Electric Co. out of the city, suddenly announced last week that she supports "full-blown public power."

In an interview with the San Francisco Examiner, Leal proclaimed that a city-owned electrical system is "where we need to get," and she added, "I think we're going to get to that place, and probably sooner than later."

It sounds great – although we're a bit dubious. Leal, after all, never supported public power as a supervisor and has done nothing at the PUC to indicate she's serious about it. Instead she fired Ed Smeloff, the only person at the PUC with real public power experience; dragged her feet on community aggregation; and then two weeks ago put forward a deeply flawed plan that effectively says aggregation is too expensive and won't work. It's entirely possible Leal's comments are directed at heading off a move by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi to give the supervisors more power in picking PUC commissioners.

Still, it's unusual, maybe unprecedented, for the head of the local PUC to be openly talking about moving toward public power – and if Leal is, indeed, serious, she can take a few immediate steps to prove it, including the following:

• Stop resisting community aggregation and give the Local Agency Formation Commission a detailed, credible plan in advance of LAFCO's April 15 meeting that helps move the process forward instead of subverting it.

• Create a public power unit in the PUC with the mandate to draft a short- and long-term plan to take over local PG&E facilities and get the city into the retail electricity business.

• Bring a resolution to the commission stating that the PUC finds that public interest and necessity mandate a full-scale public power move and that public power is among the commission's top priorities. Just having the commission on the record on this point would be a huge step, and Leal should press strongly for it.

• Call on the city controller to complete his economic-impact study on the high cost to the local economy of soaring PG&E rates. It's been two years since Sup. Chris Daly asked the controller's office to prepare that study, and it's still languishing in the bureaucratic doldrums.

• Designate a city ombudsperson to handle complaints against PG&E. Poor service, billing errors, blackouts – thousands of merchants and residents all over town have a litany of PG&E-related woes, and the city should be keeping track of them all. Ideally, a city ombudsperson could help resolve some of those problems – but more important, a complete public file that documents how unhappy San Franciscans are with their local private power monopoly will be a big political asset in the inevitable battle over municipalization.

• Carefully monitor the power system on Treasure Island to make sure that former supervisor Tony Hall and his chief aide, former PG&E flak Frank Gallagher, don't find a way to turn the system over to PG&E.

• Speak publicly in favor of closing PG&E's filthy and dangerous Hunters Point power plant and Mirant's Potrero plant, and give community activists in the southeast neighborhoods a written guarantee that the city will not site its new "peaker" plants in that neighborhood unless and until the existing polluting plants are shut down.

If Leal wants to join the public power movement, we're happy to welcome her – but a few sentences in an Examiner interview aren't going to be enough. Only some major, decisive action will convince her critics that she's not just blowing smoke to undermine Mirkarimi's efforts.

Meanwhile, Mirkarimi should keep moving forward with his proposal, perhaps as a fall ballot measure – and activists should keep reminding Leal that it's very likely that a move to give the supervisors more control over the PUC will pass.