By Craig D. Rose / San Diego Union-Tribune Op-Ed / May 21, 2021
While still early in its term, San Diego’s City Council will take a final exam next Tuesday. The test will include just one question:
Will you protect the citizens of San Diego against a utility intent on charging us the highest utility rates in the continental United States, while the same company undermines efforts to deal with the climate crisis?
The test will come when City Council members vote on the mayor’s proposed agreement to continue doing business with San Diego Gas & Electric for the next 20 years, keeping us tied to those high rates for a generation.
For the balance of this article, please go here.
Craig Rose is a former Union-Tribune reporter. He works with the Citizens Franchise Alliance, a member of the Public Power San Diego Coalition, and lives in Tierrasanta.
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You’ve obviously done your homework and I haven’t. But a few questions: If SDGE or Sempre’s profits are that big, why didn’t at least one other company bid on the contract? I mean, you are cutting a pretty fat hog with your numbers. If it’s that rich, wouldn’t somebody else take a shot? Second, what do you propose as an alternative. If’s it SD doing it ourselves, it would only get worse: See A street deal; see skydiving center; see (latest) motel purchases for the homeless.
Good important piece. Shocked not more people on this issue and that Jan Campbell has not leveraged the p[political power she has and led the campaign to stop the terrible deal already. The franchise deal should not be approved and SD should move towards Public Power, as have many municipalities across the country and the world. It will be cheaper and greener that way. To critics who bring up a few bad deals by the city, it is apples and oranges. More comparable are the municipally run and managed transit system, the garbage and recycling and composting, for another. With union jobs too.