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