[Sustain] URGENT: Mayor, Peskin, Maxwell, SFPUC Ignoring CCA, Ramming Gas Plant Down SF's Throat This Month!

[Eric Brooks]

All,

This is extremely urgent, and the City needs all of you to move into
action on it immediately.  Please read this entire email so that you are
really clear on what's going on.

Here's the break down..

Knowing full well that San Francisco has a bid going out soon for a
contract to quickly build 360 megawatts of renewable electricity
capacity under Community Choice, Mayor Newsom, Board President Aaron
Peskin, The City Attorney, SFPUC Staff, and Supervisor Sophie Maxwell,
have made sudden moves over the past week to strong arm the Public
Utilities Commissioners into approving a deal to install a 145 megawatt
polluting natural gas power plant -inside- San Francisco (in the Bayview
Hunters Point neighborhood).

What makes this move particularly egregious is that the project had been
out for bids for two years, and no contractors had expressed interest in
building it. Our City and some Eastern neighborhood activists have spent
the last few months building pressure and public comment against the
power plant mainly in the form of constituent letters to the President
of the SFPUC. Because of the lack of bids, and recent alarming news on
the global warming front, this public comment was enough to finally turn
the SFPUC Commissioners to be openly opposed to the construction of the
plant, (when previously they had grudgingly supported it).

The Commissioners told SFPUC staff that they wanted another option
found, and scheduled a public hearing to discuss the plant during their
July 10 meeting. This was the first hearing in years specifically held
to discuss the plant (known popularly by the names Combustion Turbines
(CTs) and SF Electric Reliability Project). This was a crucial chance
for the public to at last speak directly in opposition to the building
of the plant, and Eastern neighborhoods and Green Party activists sent
out a widespread message to their lists to turn out public comment on
July 10.

Shockingly, at the beginning of the July 10 SFPUC meeting, it became
clear that something really wrong had happened behind the scenes. SFPUC
President Ryan Brooks announced at the beginning of the meeting that the
power plant item was removed from the agenda. He gave no reason for the
removal, and did not properly inform those gathered that they were
permitted to speak on the matter, even though it had been removed. When
the assembled public asked Commission staff why the item had been
removed, staff deceived them into believing that it had been removed
because the project had received no bids and that the SFPUC was likely
to drop the project. Thinking that they had been given good news, many
of the commentors then apparently left elated.

Much later, in that very same meeting, as a surprise side and totally
unrelated item to the one he was presenting, Deputy General Manager Tony
Irons brought up the power plant project. He reiterated that the initial
bid had no responses, BUT stated that various companies had recently
come forward with -other- proposals for the contract that did not
conform to the original request for bids. He told the Commissioners that
he had worked with the City Attorney to make sure it was legal to
negotiate one on one (with no competitive bids) with these companies
even though their responses did not conform with the original request,
and that the Attorney had said 'yes'. (He deceptively hinted that some
of these proposals would mean that the plant would not be built in San
Francisco). He announced to the Commissioners that he was proceeding in
dialog with these contractors, and, believing that options were still on
the table to halt the plant, the Commissioners expressed relief that
another option might finally be found.

Following that meeting, in the space of -two- weeks, Irons apparently
sealed a sole source contract proposal with a company called J Power to
design, build, own and operate the plant -in- San Francisco. Not only
did this maneuvering result in a no-bid contract proposal, but it also
set up a deal which allows J Power to own the plant and then transfer
ownership of the plant to the City, for free, within 10-12 years. (Note
within 10-12 years San Francisco will have built so much renewable and
efficiency capacity that the plant will be worthless -except for parts
sales to other communities which won't amount to much- UNLESS the City
chooses to continue running the plant and gaining revenue from it.) The
plant will cost at least $225 million to build, and because the City
will not (as in the original proposal) pay for and own the plant, it is
clear that J Power will run the plant as much as possible in that first
decade of operation in order to make up their costs and make a profit.
This last point is important, because the public has been deceptively
told for years that the plant would be used as a peaker and -only- be
run during power shortages. This clearly will not happen with private
ownership. (And it would not have happened with City ownership either,
because the City would have had to run the plant constantly to pay back
the public revenue bonds spent to build it.)

Finally in this scenario, apparently because they realized public
opinion is beginning to grow strong enough to stop the plant
construction, over the course of that same two weeks, The Mayor, City
Attorney, and Supervisors Peskin and Maxwell, all joined together to
send a communication to the SFPUC Commissioners asking them to
immediately adopt a plan to allow Irons to go forward in negotiations
with J Power to build the plant. The item was immediately scheduled for
the SFPUC's next meeting (July 24) as an action item. The SFPUC
Commissioners complained to staff about being directed to adopt the
item, but Staff was extremely persuasive and insistent, and in the end,
the Commissioners voted 3-1 to adopt it anyway; with only Adam Werbach
finally showing a little courage and voting against the project. One
last important note is that Sophie Maxwell also tried to sneak through a
Board resolution that same day, directing the SFPUC to proceed with the
plant, in the 'Adoption Without Committee Reference' calendar, but Chris
Daly caught the maneuver and sent it to Committee.

It is absolutely vital that we take immediate action to stop this
process for moving forward.

cheers

Eric