September 25 2002

By Rachel Brahinsky

Mayor Willie Brown – who has tried to maintain that he supports public power, and who avoided visibly opposing public power initiatives on the 2001 ballot – will step straight into the ring next week when he headlines a political reception aimed at building support for Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s current anti-public power effort.

The reception is billed as an event to discuss a range of election issues, but an invitational letter obtained by the Bay Guardian mentions by name only Proposition D, the public power measure, calling it "disturbing."

Meanwhile Brown has endorsed a proposal for a city energy plan and supports a state assembly bill that would allow the city to buy more of its own power – without threatening PG&E's transmission monopoly.

The Sept. 12 letter, sent out by PG&E's front group, San Franciscans Against the Blank Check (run by P.R. firm Solem and Associates), was mailed to city commissioners who owe their appointments to the mayor, and others. Mayoral spokesperson P.J. Johnston and SFABC representatives didn't respond to our questions about the event, which is planned for Sept. 30 at the Sony Metreon on Mission and Fourth Streets at 5:30 p.m.

Yes on D campaign manager Ross Mirkarimi told us that the mayor's (well-tested) tactic of squeezing appointees for support for pet political causes simply stinks. "San Franciscans should be outraged that Willie would resort to a pay-to-play tactic of using his appointees to pony up resources to protect PG&E's corporate thuggery," Mirkarimi said.

The event comes at a time when outright opposition to Prop. D is becoming a political liability for a measure the mayor strongly supports: Proposition A, the Hetch Hetchy water bond measure. The mayor's No-on-D, Yes-on-A position sends a mixed message to voters: public power is bad, but public water is so good that it's worth approving $1.6 billion in revenue bonds, and tripling water rates in the years to come.

It's the sort of confusing logic that could perplex and alienate the electorate, and which risks hurting both measures at the polls.

Yet Brown is not alone in his contradictory thinking. High-level decision makers in the Yes on A camp – led by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce – have been openly and actively opposing Prop. D. Chamber president A. Lee Blitch signed a ballot argument opposing Prop. D, and the chamber paid for three other No on D arguments. Chamber senior vice president Roberta Achtenberg, for years a lesbian community leader, worked behind the scenes to try to convince the Alice B. Toklas Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Club to oppose it. Achtenberg sent a letter (cosigned by PG&E spokesperson Lester Olmstead Rose and several others) urging the club to oppose the measure, but Alice voted to support Prop. D anyway.

The No on A campaign is already moving to take advantage of the contradictory positions of the chamber and the mayor. Jack Davis, the longtime political consultant who is leading the No on A effort, was happy to stir up the fire: "Political consultants that have been involved with the Yes on A side have also been involved with focus groups against D," he told us.

Yes on A consultant Eric Jaye denies the charge that there's any tie between the groups. But in fact, many Chamber of Commerce representatives, who are also some of Prop. A's strongest backers, have persisted in opposing Prop. D, publicly and privately. Several chamber employees have been out in the community speaking against Prop. D at political clubs and neighborhood groups.

Their arguments against Prop. D are at times internally inconsistent: they say, for example, that it takes away the right of the people to vote on revenue bond issuances – but the chamber is quietly supporting Proposition E (and paid for a Yes on E ballot argument), which does the same thing. (The Alice B. Toklas club letter also included an outright lie, saying that Prop. D doesn't require the city to conduct a feasibility study prior to taking over PG&E property.)

The dynamic could cost Prop. A votes. The water bond measure has already fostered the creation of two unlikely alliances: On one side the Sierra Club, the San Francisco Tenants Union, and several landlord groups are aligned against it. Meanwhile the chamber, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR), the League of Conservation Voters, and nearly every progressive elected official in the city are supporting it.

Both sides are desperately scrambling for progressive credentials and support.

Conservative voters will probably be reluctant to back such a massive bond, so supporters of Prop. A need to win strongly in the progressive parts of town. But with allies such as the chamber and SPUR also working with the more conservative No on D forces, it could be hard for the Yes on A coalition to retain its progressive credentials.

The No on A side faces another challenge: "There are not enough conservatives in San Francisco to defeat A, so the No on A campaign needs to make arguments both to the left and to the right," explained David Binder, a political analyst who is working for the Yes on A campaign.

All this jockeying for votes was avoidable, Prop. D's Mirkarimi told us. "Proposition D in many ways is a cousin to Proposition A," he said. "The two should be promoted jointly and positively, and for the chamber and SPUR to arrogantly promote A and try to bash D will undermine the passage of A."