By Matthew Hirsch

Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which hasn't been able to make many inroads with the progressive San Francisco Board of Supervisors, is developing a new political tactic: Co-opt local nonprofits.

The company invited dozens of nonprofit leaders to a private meeting on the luxury-box level at SBC Park early this summer, the Bay Guardian has learned, reviving a dormant body called the Community Advisory Council – and quickly used it to try shutting down a key public power committee.

All this suggests that PG&E is trying to increase its political force in City Hall after running into roadblocks when the progressives took control of the Board of Supervisors in the 2000 election. Only now the giant utility is operating under the guise of a good corporate citizen that is looking out for the well-being of local nonprofits in this time of financial need.

PG&E has long been one of the most powerful players in San Francisco politics and has lavished money on candidates and political parties both locally and statewide. It spent $2.3 million lobbying in Sacramento and another $1 million lobbying the California Public Utilities Commission during the last election cycle, and its parent company, PG&E Corp., contributed more than $340,000 to federal campaigns during that time, according to the California secretary of state's campaign finance database and the Center for Responsive Politics.

But on the local level, PG&E has been struggling since the return of district elections, when campaign money became far less of a factor in supervisorial races and a progressive majority took on then-mayor Willie Brown, ousting his allies from the Board of Supervisors and giving control to a group that owed little to PG&E.

Since then, the public power agenda has moved forward on several fronts – most significantly that of community-choice aggregation – leaving PG&E on the defensive. Among other things, the company is clearly concerned about the Local Agency Formation Commission's pursuit of a feasibility study on buying out the local electrical system and completely eliminating PG&E from the SF grid.

The company began moving forward with its new strategy early this summer, sending out invitations to nonprofit leaders announcing plans to revive its community advisory council.

PG&E called its first meeting on the club level at SBC Park, where companies pay $5,500 to $10,000 to rent space for a day. One invitee, Friends of the Urban Forest executive director Kelly Quirk, told us, "There were information tables around and a very humble buffet line."

According to Quirk, PG&E gave a brief presentation, then left plenty of time for guests to mingle before heading to the upper deck, where PG&E had reserved seats for the Giants game.

All the while, PG&E made no clear mention of its agenda. Then, during a follow-up lunch with Quirk, PG&E lobbyist Travis Kiyota brought up LAFCo, which Kiyota said was wasting taxpayer money that could otherwise go to nonprofits like Friends of the Urban Forest.

Quirk wasn't the only nonprofit executive getting a not-so-gentle push from Kiyota: Soon, a letter-writing campaign to the supervisors was under way, filled with mischaracterizations about LAFCo, all orchestrated by PG&E (see "PG&E Sneak Attack," 7/20/05).

The PG&E-as-good-citizen campaign took another leap July 18, when Sup. Chris Daly received a letter from Lawrence Goldzband, PG&E's charitable-contributions manager, who, as a company representative, called on Daly to support the mayor's capital projects for the parks.

Isabel Wade, director of the Neighborhood Parks Council and an ally of Mayor Gavin Newsom, said PG&E was responding to an e-mail request she sent to her mailing list of 3,500 recipients. "They wrote [Daly] because they got that, and I guess they thought it would do them some good," she said, noting it was the first such letter PG&E had ever sent the supervisors on her group's behalf.

"They do seem to be more engaged in the community now," Wade said of PG&E, which is also sponsoring the parks council's annual fundraiser gala this year.

After suffering from a raft of bad publicity in recent years – the energy crisis, the bankruptcy, rate increases, and the 2003 Christmas blackout in San Francisco – PG&E could stand to bolster its brand image. But John Avalos, Daly's legislative aide, wonders if partnering with PG&E is a good match for local nonprofits.

"I'm concerned about how objective and how independent [the Neighborhood Parks Council] can be when PG&E is one of their biggest funders," Avalos told us.

PG&E has played this game before. Two years ago the company launched the Close It! Coalition, part of a thinly veiled attempt to co-opt the grassroots campaign that was (and continues to be) agitating for the closure of the Hunters Point power plant, which PG&E owns.

Ed Smeloff, the city's former director of power policy, called the move "terribly deceptive." The real reason for the Close It! Coalition, activists said, was to rally support for a controversial transmission project in northern San Mateo County, which PG&E said would facilitate closure of its power plant in San Francisco.

And sure enough, the transmission line is now under construction, while the toxic power plant churns away.

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