By Rachel Brahinsky

The Hearst-owned San Francisco Chronicle came out against Proposition D Oct. 25, using lame arguments that directly clashed with the solid work of the paper's own reporters.

"Some of the same fundamental questions that sank last year's measure should be applied to Proposition D. The biggest of all is whether public power would really bring lower rates," the Oct. 25 editorial says. It's a strange statement, given the fact that just two days earlier reporters Chuck Finnie and Susan Sward published a story titled "Bills Lower When Utilities Are Public," which showed that public power agencies (including Turlock's and Modesto's, which buy power generated by San Francisco's Hetch Hetchy system) charge far less than Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

The Chronicle editorial also says that the measure shouldn't have been written to allow the city to take over PG&E's wires and poles. Two days later, on Oct. 27, Finnie and Sward ran another story, this time emphasizing twice that the measure only allows the city to take over PG&E's distribution system "following an independent cost-benefit study and a determination by the city controller that the price wouldn't raise electricity rates." That important fact was apparently ignored by the Chronicle's editorial board.

The editorial goes on to call public power risky. But it doesn't acknowledge the risk of staying with PG&E as it tries to evade state regulation in bankruptcy court.

"Chuck and Susan did some excellent reporting," Chronicle editorial page editor John Diaz told us. "But the members of the editorial board made our independent judgment on this as we do on all issues.... The Chronicle maintains a fire wall between our news and opinion pages."

Cash money

The David-and-Goliath struggle that has characterized the public power fight in San Francisco this year couldn't be more lopsided. Already, Ethics Commission records have shown that the No on D camp, primarily funded by PG&E, spent $2.2 million as of Oct. 19. All that cash – which could have gone to lower your rates, to fix PG&E's crumbling infrastructure, or to build a new solar power installation – was spent on things like campaign literature, TV ads, and polls.

"Two million is an extraordinary amount of money for a local measure," Jim Knox, executive director for campaign-cash watchdog group Common Cause, told us. "I can't say that it's unprecedented, but it's definitely top-tier." The pro-public power camp has spent $30,000 and benefited from about $20,000 in donated ad space from the Bay Guardian, according to the latest filing.

Leading the public power pack

San Francisco voters who are still unclear about public power might want to listen to Davis City Council member Michael Harrington. Harrington voted Oct. 23 to move the small city one big step toward replacing PG&E with public power.

"PG&E's rates are high, reliability is low, and they're bankrupt," Harrington told us.

The council unanimously voted to ask the Sacramento Municipal Utility District and other nearby communities to consider providing power to Davis.

Council members were swayed by testimony that a local grocery store, the Nugget Market, paid $7,618 more for power to PG&E just in the month of September than it would have paid if it had been a customer of SMUD. As Harrington put it, "You've got to sell a lot of Popsicles and gallons of milk to make that up."

A disappearing energy plan?

Has the Mirant Corp., whose lobbyist Billy Rutland is a close friend of Mayor Willie Brown's, pressured the city to squelch its draft energy plan?

Penned by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and the Department of the Environment, the draft plan envisions a San Francisco with cleaner, more disbursed power plants. Significantly, Mirant's proposal to massively expand its Potrero Hill power plant is not included.

We reported two weeks ago that the folks at Mirant aren't pleased. One Mirant attorney "was a bit incredulous that the city plan did not include Potrero 7 [the proposed plant]," according to a company spokesperson (see "Mirant's Morass," 10/16/02). Two days later, according to a city hall insider who asked not to be named, the plan was pulled from the city's Web site (we checked – it's still not there).

We called SFPUC power policy manager Ed Smeloff, one of the main authors, and he said the document – which has been up on the Web in draft form since last March – was removed simply because the mayor hasn't approved it yet, and senior staffers are "doing a thorough review."

Rutland emphatically told us he has never discussed the plan with the mayor and Mirant hasn't directed him to take any action on it, because "there's no way it's fully baked."

The mayor's press office didn't return our calls.
The Bay Guardian, Bay Guardian editor and publisher Bruce B. Brugmann, and associate publisher Jean Dibble are contributors to the Yes on D campaign. To help out during the last week of the campaign call (415) 820-1418. E-mail Rachel Brahinsky at rachel@sfbg.com.