By Luke Thomas
October 10, 2008
An impromptu “respectful” and “professional” debate between Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi and a PG&E employee occurred yesterday during a special meeting of the Haight-Ashbury Neighborhood Council (HANC). HANC held the meeting to consider Proposition H, the San Francisco Clean Energy Act, for its endorsement.
The employee said he feared PG&E workers would lose their jobs if Proposition H is passed in November.
Mirkarimi countered that Proposition H is simply a charter amendment that seeks to examine the feasibility of municipalizing San Francisco’s energy production, incrementally advancing San Francisco to a 100 percent clean energy portfolio by 2040.
Proposition H is “our gateway to finding answers that are blessed by the City’s constitution so that it’s meaningful and has teeth, and it’s binding and it’s obligatory,” Mirkarimi said during a Prop H fundraiser billed as a “Green Note Jazz Mixer,” held at the Poleng Lounge immediately following the HANC endorsement meeting. “We’re doing what cities throughout California have done to say that we want to deliver the best energy from a renewable source at cheaper rates.”
Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, who attended the fundraiser, said: “As incompetent as your government may be, it doesn’t have a profit motive, it doesn’t pay its executives $30 million when they’re in bankruptcy.”
“If you write your check to (P)igs, (G)reed and (E)xtortion, they’ll cash it,” Peskin added. “We have an unparalleled opportunity to take the greed and the profit motive and return a resource that is fundamentally the resource of all of us, back to us.”
More Info
Power Struggle – How the best-laid plans of John Edward Raker and the U.S. Congress were scuttled by PG&E: A chronology, 1848–1988
San Francisco Clean Energy Act website
Luke Thomas
Luke Thomas is a former software developer and computer consultant who proudly hails from London, England. In 2001, Thomas took a yearlong sabbatical to travel and develop a photographic portfolio. Upon his return to the US, Thomas studied photojournalism to pursue a career in journalism. In 2004, Thomas worked for several neighborhood newspapers in San Francisco before accepting a partnership agreement with the SanFranciscoSentinel.com, a news website formerly covering local, state and national politics. In September 2006, Thomas launched FogCityJournal.com. The BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, New York Times, Der Spiegel, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Bay Guardian and the San Francisco Weekly, among other publications and news outlets, have published his work. Thomas is a member of the Freelance Unit of the Pacific Media Workers Guild, TNG-CWA Local 39521 and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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October 10, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Trying to tie the current BOS with good government decisions made more than 70 years ago isn’t just a stretch it is a drunkard’s rambling yarn.
I think that every dollar spent by PG & E to fend off the City Hall pigs is money well spent. That money however is essentially paid by rate payers so please Mr Peskin when you get your stupid idea slapped back in your face, please don’t be in too much of a hurry to ramp up another campaign to stick it to those of us who have to pay for electricity . I’m happy that City Hall isn’t involved in the process.
October 10, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Yes our Water rates are cheap, and that goes along way to explain why there is a water shortage. If we were charged more may be we would all use less? Local government has a responsibility to control water usage and we should charge all users appropriately to reduce our water usage. So the argument that they can run a Water utility is incorrect, they are not running it responsibly. Mirkarimi’s argument is so ass backward it’s embarrassing, I thought he was a member of the Green Party, he should be shouting from the roof tops to stop our water usage, not stating the management of our water as efficient.
On to Penskin quote: “What’s this rhetoric about City Government can’t do it?†Has he ever traveled on MUNI, if not may be he’s been lucky and his car suspension has not broken on the Pot Holes? Clearly he lives in a different city to me. In the past may be San Francisco was a City that could manage large projects today San Francisco is a shameful shadow of its former self.