The next Prop. F

JUST ABOUT EVERYONE in San Francisco's public power movement agrees on two things: there ought to be another charter amendment on the ballot this fall – and it shouldn't look exactly like Proposition F, the measure that lost by the narrowest of margins last year. But there's a lot of debate about the shape of the new measure, and there's a risk that the final product could be so watered down that it won't accomplish the real goal: getting San Franciscans out from under Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and creating a real, effective, functioning public power system in the city.

Prop. F, authored by Sup. Tom Ammiano, was a solid proposal. It would have created a seven-member, district-elected board to oversee a city water and power agency with jurisdiction over the entire Hetch Hetchy water system – and a clear mandate to revoke PG&E's franchise and start selling retail power to local residents and businesses. The measure lost by less than one percentage point in an election with extremely low turnout. Turnout will be much higher this fall, and that tends to help progressive measures.

But it's not that simple, unfortunately. Last year, local labor unions poured a substantial amount of money and organizing time into the Yes on F campaign, and public power advocates can't count on that happening again. And it's always risky to ask the voters to approve the exact same thing they just rejected a year earlier. Besides, Prop. F was written quickly, in the heat of political battle; there's plenty that can be changed.

But some aspects of Prop. F shouldn't be negotiable. The city's water and power system must be under the control of an independently accountable agency, as free as possible from the influence of PG&E lobbyists and their political allies (which is why we think a district-elected board makes so much sense). The agency needs to have the full authority to pursue whatever programs make fiscal and policy sense, including the ability to issue revenue bonds and seize PG&E's local distribution system by eminent domain. And it needs as its ultimate goal the creation of a municipal power system that replaces PG&E as the supplier of retail electricity in San Francisco.