The SF Weekly is usually against anything we’re supporting (they love to bash the left over there, and particularly like to bash us), but to my astonishment, along with his typical snide comments, Benjamin Wachs actually has some intelligent comments on the Clean Energy Act:
The city has the right -even the duty- to plan responsibly for its future, and then follow-up. Prop H shouldn’t even need to be on the ballot, it should be standard practice. Yes, let us evaluate our options and pick the best one. I wish the city would run its economy, law enforcement, and housing offices the same way. To be clear: anyone who is against Prop H isn’t against public ownership of utilities – they’re against planning.
Randy Shaw’s on the case, too. He’s a little dubious about the political hopes for Prop. H, since it doesn’t fit his own rule of “Keep it Simple,” and he suggests that the measure may get buried in the PG&E propaganda and the flood of other stuff on the ballot. The problem is, you can’t make a serious clean-energy initiative simple; there’s just too much policy involved. And if it were simpler, PG&E would call it “a simplistic solution.”
We all knew from day one that PG&E had endless money and would spend whatever it thinks is necessary to defeat Prop. H. But Shaw acknowledges that
With Mark Leno, Susan Leal, and Bevan Dufty taking high-profile roles in backing Prop H, the initiative has a broader and more diverse base than its similar predecessors.
And the Yes on H campaign is only really starting.
If this wasn’t going to be close, PG&E wouldn’t already be pulling out all the stops.