By Tim Redmond
Will Harper, who insists he’s not opposed to public power, lashed out today at the Yes on H campaign. His claim: Supporters of the Clean Energy Act — including me — aren’t being straight with the voters about what the measure means.
Yes, Will: Much of what is in the charter amendment could be done without going to the ballot — if the mayor of San Francisco were willing. But with a mayor whose chief political advisor, Eric Jaye, is on Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s payroll, it’s a little hard to get any progressive energy policy done. Even if eight supervisors vote for, say, a study to consider public power, the mayor can do what he’s done with affordable housing: Refuse to spend the money.
And yes, it seemed to make sense to put together an overall ballot measure that included several things — aggressive clean-energy goals, an energy optioins study AND enabling legislation to allow the supervisors to issue revenue bonds for utility projects.
Harper insists that Prop. H is somehow misleading:
With the earlier power measures, their intent was always clear: Municipalize PG&E. Prop. H, however, conceals its true objective.
Um, I think if you read the Guardian, Will, you’ll see that we’ve been rather clear that this is a BOTH a clean-energy proposal and a public-power measure, and that we think that’s a good idea. The evidence is pretty clear that public power is the best (perhaps the only) way to meet strong clean-energy goals; PG&E clearly isn’t going to get there.
It’s true that the measure calls for a study on power options. If it hadn’t, then PG&E and its allies would be blasting the measure for mandating public power without a study. You can’t win with these guys.
As for his personal attack on me:
In various editorials, the Prop. H supporters at the Bay Guardian have made this seem like no big deal. The most blatant distortion appeared in its recent endorsement issue in which executive editor Tim Redmond proclaimed, “Nobody ever votes on revenue bonds. In California, we vote on general obligation bonds, which are backed by taxpayers. Revenue bonds are backed by a defined revenue stream…”
Actually, people do vote on revenue bonds. Seven years ago, San Francisco voters approved Prop. A, which authorized the city to sell $1.63 billion worth of revenue bonds to upgrade the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. The defined revenue stream: San Francisco water users, who saw their rates go up.
Will, do your homework. In 2002, voters approved two things: A revenue bond measure for water and sewer projects and another measure that allows the SF PUC to issue revenue bonds without a vote of the people..
So we don’t vote on water and sewer revenue bonds. We don’t vote on airport revenue bonds, either. The airport is in the process right now of selling revenue bonds for the Terminal 2 rebuild; nothing on the ballot about that. In fact, the mayor wants to speed up the process. The voters have decided that it’s okay to issue revenue bonds for improving the airport and the Hetch Hetchy water system; all Prop. H does is ask for the same authority for clean energy and power projects.
There’s nothing secret about this (except maybe the SF Weekly’s position on the issue). Harper writes:
I’m not opposed to the idea of public power, but I don’t like being bullshitted.
Okay, WIll, now that I’ve cleared it all up for you, are you voting Yes on H?