September 18, 2002

In this issue

FOR MANY YEARS now I have carried around a handy little blue coin purse in my pocket. It is a superb marketing item with a message for anyone who has ever thrown a light switch in San Francisco during the past 80 years. The message on the purse reads, "Call before you dig, ROCK RAPIDS MUNICIPAL UTILITIES, (712) 472-2513).

I was born and reared in Rock Rapids (population 2,800), a conservative, Republican farming community in northwest Iowa that has enjoyed, since l896, the enormous hometown advantages of owning and operating its own public power system. Back there, the phrase "call before you dig" is a friendly reminder that if you have any problems with your gas or electricity, you call and someone you know comes out to your house or business and gives you fast, reliable, and courteous service.

My grandfather started a drugstore in Rock Rapids that he and my father after him operated well into the l970s ("Brugmanns drugs: Where drugs and gold are fairly sold, since l902"). One reason the store survived the Depression, my grandfather used to tell me, was because he and the rest of the town got cheap public power. The money saved by the low power rates stayed in town, helping the community, instead of being shipped out of town to investors and executives of a private utility, he explained.

Last week, I called back to Rock Rapids to get an update. Jan Spyksma and Jim Hoye told me that Rock Rapids's public power system was still serving the town well and still had lower rates than nearby Rock Valley's private power company, making Rock Rapids a much healthier community. In addition, they told me that the utility was turning over $6,000 a month to the town's general fund and that it had donated nice chunks of money to such civic projects as the swimming pool fund and building a new ball diamond. Emmetsburg just voted for public power, and at least 10 other Iowa towns are looking to follow suit.

As our $620 Million Shakedown package in this issue demonstrates, PG&E's ever higher rates and ever lousier service have seriously damaged San Francisco's economy. And so the question is more timely than ever: If public power works so well in Iowa (and in Sacramento, Los Angeles, Seattle, and 2,200 other public power cities), why not in San Francisco?