The corporate parent of PG&E, the bankrupt California utility fighting for financial recovery, has pumped more than $1 million into a campaign to defeat a pair of public power measures on Tuesday's ballot in San Francisco.
Company representatives say they want to protect their assets in the city, where there are 365,000 Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers. Independent experts say more is at stake.
"I'm sure they don't want to see a snowball effect where other cities try to turn them out," said Severin Borenstein, director of the University of California's Energy Institute.
Borenstein noted that Los Angeles, the state's largest city, had long been in the public power business. So has Sacramento and a number of smaller cities,
such as Alameda and Palo Alto. PG&E serves 4.7 million customers in the state.
"If you're looking at a major movement, San Francisco is the biggest location where this is being discussed now," Borenstein said yesterday.
San Diego and San Jose also have been looking at putting their electrical system under public control, but have yet to take action. In San Francisco, two measures on the ballot would pave the way for a publicly owned electricity system.
Measure I would set up an independent municipal utility district for San Francisco and neighboring Brisbane, governed by state law. Proposition F would create a Water and Power Agency in San Francisco only and retain ties to City Hall.
In both cases, elected directors would decide whether to seize PG&E's transmission and distribution lines.
PG&E has said it isn't interested in selling, and for decades has fought at City Hall and in court to derail such efforts in San Francisco. But last winter's energy crisis shifted public attitudes and a more liberal Board of Supervisors pushed the public power proposals forward.
Still, PG&E vigorously opposes the effort. Campaign finance reports show PG&E spent $1,023,289 through Oct. 20 to defeat the measures. How much more money the company has poured into the campaign since then will not be made public until after the election.
Other business interests gave nearly $400,000 more through Oct. 20 to fight the ballot measures. The contributors include Pacific Telesis Group ($100,000) and AT&T ($150,000). The companies fear the creation of a MUD would lead the new agency's directors to try to take over the phone and communications operations, too. The Committee on Jobs, a big business group funded in part by PG&E, gave $110,500.
The money has paid for campaign consultants, mailers, slate cards, polls, phone banks and TV ads.
PG&E spokeswoman Jennifer Ramp said the spending was warranted.
"It's perfectly natural that any company -- bankrupt or not -- facing a hostile takeover would fight the measures and get the word out to people that this is not going to solve the energy crisis," Ramp said.
She added the money used in the campaign did not come from the utility but from its corporate parent company.
Ross Mirkarimi, who runs the public power campaigns, was more blunt in his assessment of PG&E's campaign contributions.
"They are going to do everything they can to preserve their monopoly and greed," he said.
The campaigns in favor of Proposition F and Measure I raised a little more than $90,000 through Oct. 20. Bay Guardian newspaper publisher Bruce Brugmann and his wife, Jean, gave $10,500. The weekly paper, which has long crusaded for public power, provided an additional $38,000 in free advertising. The Vanguard Public Foundation donated another $10,000.
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