By Bruce B. Brugmann and Janna Brancolini (Scroll down for Jean Dibble’s photo essay of the rally and comments by the speakers)
It was a historic rally Tuesday on the City Hall steps to kick off the third initiative aimed at bringing clean energy and public power to San Francisco.
As our photo essay shows, there was a formidable and diverse array of politicians and environmental and social justice organizations lined up with their signs and speeches to support the measure.
Five supervisors, including the board president, spoke at the rally (Ross Mirkarimi, Aaron Peskin, Tom Ammiano, Bevin Dufty, and Gerardo Sandoval) and then went into a board meeting in City Hall and hours later voted with two other colleagues (Sophie Maxwell and Chris Daly) to put the pioneering initiative on the November 2008 ballot. The vote was 7-4, with Sups. Sean Elsbernd, Michaela Alioto-Pier, Carmen Chu, and Jake McGoldrick voting against. The rally and the vote were cannon shots heard round the city, the state, and the nation.
Susan Leal, former general manager of the SF Public Utilities Commission, made her first public appearance since her dismissal by Mayor Newsom, at the urging of PG&E, for her moves toward public power. The Sierra Club, which fought the damming of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park a century ago and still wants to tear the dam down, was standing tall with the group (John Rizzo).
All in all, it was one of the most impressive starts to a tough initiative campaign that i have seen in 42 years of covering City Hall for the Guardian. More: having covered the clean energy/public power beat since l969 and our first expose of the PG&E/Raker Act scandal, I think this initiative and this emerging campaign has an excellent chance of winning in November. Remember: when the public power movement revved up in the late l990s, it faced a PG&E-friendly mayor (Willie Brown), a PG&E friendly City Attorney (Louise Renne, whose husband worked for a downtown law firm getting big PG&E money) and a PG&E-friendly Board of Supervisors (only Tom Ammiano and the late Sue Bierman were pro-public power) and had to go around City Hall by going the route of a Municipal Utility District (MUD) ala the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (MUD). This time around, the board turned against PG&E and the city attorney’s office drafted the initiative for the board president and an emerging mayoral candidate.
The November ballot is filled with the juicy issues that bring out the voters: Obama, seven supervisorial races, and a raft of good initiatives aimed at dealing with major city problems (an affordable housing plan, two new tax plans focused on bringing in revenue from the wealthy, a big bond act to rebuild San Francisco General hospital, and the green energy and public power plan.) This time around, clean energy and public power are in the news and the media carried the story widely. PG&E is more worried than ever before and is already launched an early carpet bombing campaign and setting up astroturf and greenwashing operations allegro furioso. And their operatives are out and about and lurking everywhere. On guard!
The Jean Dibble photo essay
Julian Davis, campaign chair, leads off the event and introduces the speakers.
The group stretching across the steps from left to right: representatives from the SF Green Party, the Green Guerrillas Against Greenwash Network, the Sierra Club, Mark Sanchez, president of the San Francisco Board of Education, Julian Davis of San Francisco Tomorrow, John Rizzo of the Sierra Club (speaking), Mirkarimi,
Sierra Club, Green Action, Green Guerrillas Against Greenwash, League of Young/Pissed Off Voters, more Sierra Club, Global Exchange, Power Vote, and League of Young Voters. (Not pictured in this photo were some l5 people from ACORN.
Another overview of the group with Davis at the microphone.
Assemblyman Mark Leno: “Jimmy Carter predicted 30 years ago that by 2000 we could be down from 40 per cent dependence on foreign oil to 20 per cent dependence. We didn’t listen. Instead we were up to 60 per cent by 2000 and now we’re pushing 70 per cent…This measure will take our fate out of PG&E’s hands and put it into the hands of our communities, who have a profound stake in providing clean, sustainable, reliable, and reasononably priced electric services.”
Former PUC General Manager Susan Leal: “This initiative is about protecting the environment and the rights of San Franciscans and their ratepayers…It’s 167 miles (from San Francisco) to Hetch Hetchy (valley.). The first 140 miles of movement is cheaper than the last 27 miles because PG&E controls it. There’s an economic piece and an environmental piece. We have the technology–geothermal and solar trough. How are you going to move that power? We aren’t going to be able to make it (financially) because PG&E jacks up the rates on the last 27 miles. In 20l5 they’re jacking them up again…this is taking back what is ours.”
Sup. Ross Mikarimi, co-author of the initiative: “This is not a ‘hostile’ take over,”he said. This is a “meaured way to make the city l00 per cent green and clean in 20 years. This act mandates a feasibility study on how we can provide green and clean energy…otherwise PG&E has a monopoly here until the planet dies.”
Sup. Aaron Peskin, board president and co-author of the measure: “It’s a very profound thought. This is a time when people (and San Francisco) can change the destiny of the planet…As goes San Francisco, so goes California. As goes California, so goes the nation.”
Sup. Tom Ammiano, author of two previous public power initiatives: “This issue has a sordid history….500 missing ballots (in the first election), where did they go? …It involves environmental justice. Some have called the (green movement) the Queenhouse effect.” He then said PG&E is avaricious, immoral, and takes homophobic measures. “It wants to shoot the messenger.” He concluded, “This is our time. We’re going to win. We’ll keep the lights on for years.”
Sup. Bevin Dufty: PG&E’s utility undergrounding system is “an example of PG&E mismanaging things.” He said people in his district were without electricity for 24-48 hours. “This is a referendum for change.”
Sup. Gerardo Sandoval: “As we’re leaving office, a lot of us want this to be our crown jewel. ..Government works. Government works well because government is better able to assume risk. There is still a lot of risk in renewwable energy, investments, and so on. The private industry is not going to take that risk. It’s always going to take the cheap way out, which is fossil fuels.”
Mark Sanchez, president of the San Francisco Board of Education, said that children in our schools were affected by the ramifications of PG&E’s monopoly.
John Rizzo of the Sierra Club: “(Al) Gore said the future of civilization is at stake. Gore’s challenge is a moral one–one that we’ve embraced in San Francisco.” He said that “renewable energy and the green movement will change the world’s economy. Not in Japan, China, or Germany. It will be here.”
Another overview photo.
Aliza Wasserman of the League of Young/Pissed Off Voters: She warned of PG&Es propaganda campaign claiming to be green. “Take a step back and think about where they’re investing. PG&E is not investing one dollar in renewable energy beyond state mandates and they lobby against measures to raise those mandates.
PG&E is one per cent solar, one per cent wind, and 98 per cent hot air.”
Nicholas Perez, my l4-year-old grandson from Santa Barbara, attended the rally with his dog Charlie.
Early on, as the speakers warmed up on PG&E, Charley summed up PG&E’s position eloquently. He made a timely deposit on the sidewalk in front of the rally. (Nicholas cleaned it up quickly.) Much more to come,
B3, still watching the fumes from the Potrero Hill power plant from my office window at the bottom of Potrero Hill, courtesy of PG&E and Mayor Gavin Newsom
P.S. Incidental question: how can Newsom pretend to be the “green” mayor and be the “green” candidate for governor when he buckles under to PG&E so ignominously? He’s buckled twice to PG&E, first by flip flopping on the Potrero Hill peakers, then on coming out so strong and so quickly against the Clean Energy Act initiative.
Brugmann’s Law: you can’t be a “green” mayor or a “green” anything if you knuckle under to PG&E on the big green issues.
P.S.: A tip of the Potrero Hill martini glass to the seven supervisors who defied PG&E and voted for clean energy: Aaron Peskin, Ross Mirkarimi, Bevin Dufty, Tom Ammiano, Gerardo Sandoval. Sophie Maxwell, and Chris Daly.
The opposition four will be known from now on as the PG&E Four (Sean Elsbernd, Carmine Chu, Michaela Alioto-Pier, and (gulp) Jack McGoldrick). Jake? Jake? What happened to you? Can you please explain? It’s not too late to change your position.