ON NOV. 6 – the day after a $2 million campaign by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. helped defeat a public power measure on the San Francisco ballot – the California Public Utilities Commission announced it would allow the big private electric companies in the state to continue a 30 percent rate hike that was supposed to be temporary. In essence, the panel ruled that PG&E and Southern California Edison can use ratepayers' money to solve their own financial problems – in PG&E's case, to help the utility get out of bankruptcy.

The next day, in a heavy windstorm, power went out all over the Bay Area, and in some cases, PG&E crews (depleted by several years of staffing cutbacks) were unable to get the lights back on for several days.

Attorney General Bill Lockyer should immediately move to investigate whether the PUC decision was held off until after the election to help PG&E. But in the meantime, PUC members (including former San Francisco public defender Jeff Brown) can never again be trusted to regulate the giant utilities. Meanwhile the rates are only going to rise and the service get worse as PG&E struggles to emerge from Chapter 11.

What that means to San Franciscans is simple: public power may have lost Nov. 5, but in the not-so-very-long term, it's inevitable. City residents and businesses can't possibly continue to handle the economic burden of ever higher rates (which take at least $620 million out of the local economy; see 'The $620 Million Shakedown'). The declining service leaves the city terribly vulnerable – if one storm can do that much damage, for that long, imagine what an earthquake would do. And the dirty power from two filth-belching fossil-fuel power plants, one owned by PG&E and the other owned by Mirant Corp., will continue to cause serious health problems in the southeast part of town.

As Rachel Brahinsky reports in 'Why Prop. D went down', the real issue now is not when to bring back the next public power campaign – it ought to be starting immediately. The issue is how best to approach the issue and which of a number of alternatives should be pursued. Public power advocates need to start meeting now to look at the following options:

• An immediate, comprehensive feasibility study. One big problem with running the public power campaign this fall was the lack of a detailed, credible study showing that public power would work in San Francisco and would be a far cheaper alternative than continuing with PG&E. The Local Agency Formation Commission has the authority and the resources to commission that study right away, and it should do so.

• Enforcing the Raker Act. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1940 – in very clear language – that the Raker Act of 1913, the law that gave San Francisco the right to build a dam in Yosemite National Park, requires the city to operate a public power system. Only two people have the legal standing to go to court and demand that the decision be enforced – the secretary of the interior, who is unlikely to do it, and the San Francisco city attorney, who should. City Attorney Dennis Herrera needs to make public all city records related to the Raker Act and study the logistics of a lawsuit aimed at forcing the mayor to move on creating a full-scale public power system. The civil grand jury should update its reports demanding enforcement. The supervisors should demand a plan to move forward on it.

• Using existing city authority. San Francisco already has City Charter provisions calling for the eventual public takeover of local utilities, and with the passage of Proposition E there may be legal way to get the city into the power business – now, without going back to the ballot. Combining community aggregation and the construction of solar and low-pollution power plants could lead to the beginning of a municipal power system – and while that shouldn't be the final goal, the supervisors should be looking aggressively and creatively at every step in the direction of public power.

• Going back to the ballot next fall. There are plenty of reasons why another public power initiative, timed to coincide with the 2003 mayoral race, makes a lot of sense. The case for public power will only get stronger as time passes and rates keep rising. This year, though, the campaign needs to start right away and should be directed (as the 2001 campaign was) by grassroots activists. Public power advocates should start talking about what sort of measure makes sense and should draft the language, then bring it to the supervisors – early enough so if the board won't put something acceptable on the ballot, there's still time for the activists to gather signatures and do it themselves. The sooner a measure is written, the sooner fundraising and organizing can start.

As Joe Neilands, who broke the first Raker Act story in the Bay Guardian in 1969, pointed out in a recent e-mail to us, it took decades to break up the Southern Pacific railroad monopoly. Defeating PG&E was never going to be easy – but the battle will, and must, continue.
P.S.: The San Francisco Chronicle did a decent job covering the campaign, but in the end it missed some key points. For example, neither David Lazarus's column nor the story on the PUC decision mentioned public power as the only possible alternative to PG&E's high rates. And the Chronicle undercut its own reporting by endorsing against Prop. D without any good argument – and then tried to explain it away with a piece by editorial page editor John Diaz pointing to a "firewall" between the reporters and the editorial page (which, apparently, prevents the editorial page from paying attention to the reporters' good work). Meanwhile, Bay Guardian editor and publisher Bruce B. Brugmann sent a statement on the election to Chuck Finnie and Susan Sward, who asked for a comment for their wrap-up piece, but it never made it into print – and the Chron wouldn't even run it as a letter to the editor (although the Chron routinely called Brugmann the major financier of the Yes on D campaign). Here's the statement they wouldn't print: "Considering that PG&E spent a record $2 million plus, and Sup. Newsom spent hundreds of thousands on a sophisticated ad and field operation to get out the more conservative voters to attack the homeless, it is remarkable that an underfunded, grassroots public power campaign came within three points of winning. "The issue is now on the front page of the Chronicle and now in the front of everyone's consciousness in San Francisco. PG&E's rates are going to keep going up, service will get worse, the two private power plants will keep pumping poisons into San Francisco, the city will be more vulnerable than ever. Public power is now inevitable in San Francisco. The only question is how and when."