Leaders of the state-sponsored nonprofit agency that oversees California's troubled power grid convened behind closed doors yesterday for private policy discussions -- and were immediately challenged to open the meeting to the public.
In response to a protest by The Chronicle and others, the board of the California Independent System Operator later changed course and agreed to open part of its meeting.
Also, attorneys for the Wall Street Journal filed a petition yesterday in Sacramento Superior Court seeking an order that would have compelled the Cal- ISO board to open its doors to media and other public observers.
That petition was denied, although a hearing on the underlying issues raised by the petition was set for Feb. 16, according to a spokesman for Dow Jones & Co., the Journal's corporate parent.
Despite the protests, several hours' worth of board discussions were carried on as planned in private sessions at the company's headquarters in Folsom. Reporters and other would-be observers were left to mingle outside the meeting room.
The private talks were designed mostly to sort out legal options in the face of California's energy woes, said Michael Kahn, one of five new Cal-ISO board members named by Gov. Gray Davis. The new board takes control from a defunct 26-member board dominated by industry partisans and other "stakeholders."
Kahn said the board had a duty to meet in private, rather than compromise the public's legal position. In any case, he said, the board made no decisions during the meetings, other than to agree with suggestions that a special board "workshop" be held in open session.
A reporter had appealed at the outset of the meeting for the new board to allow the press and public to sit in during the four-hour workshop, described as an introduction for the new board members to such matters as how the power transmission system works, the functions of the ISO and a review of California energy markets.
Other observers addressed the board later during a brief public comment period, and also called for an open workshop. After the board disappeared behind closed doors for about three hours, Kahn emerged to report that the board had decided to grant the request.
Due to the length of private talks, however, the workshop was rescheduled for 1 p.m. Tuesday. A live audio feed is planned via the Cal-ISO web site, www. caiso.com.
Experts on California's public-meetings laws were divided over whether the laws applied to the quasi-public electricity company.
Terry Francke, general counsel of the California First Amendment Coalition, which includes media organizations and other free-speech proponents, said the issue was complicated by the legal status of the company, the nature of the discussions and its own formal policies.
Still, he added, "an argument could be made . . . that the ISO board is a creature of the state" and therefore required to meet in public except when discussing personnel matters and in certain other specified circumstances.
E-mail Carl Hall at carlhall@sfchronicle.com
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