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O PINION &EDITORIAL
Views expressed in Opinion & Editorial do not reflect the views of the Rancho Santa Fe News
RANCHO SANTA FE NEWS JUNE 28, 2013
PUC can redeem itself: Charge Edison for SONGS By Thomas D. Elias
Money can’t always buy development By Ken Leighton
Out-of-town developers massively overspent Encinitas townsfolk to defeat Prop A, the proposition that basically said you can’t put high density/high-rise residences in our town unless the people approve it. Insiders say the final tally will show they spent over $150,000, which is seven or eight times more than what the Yes on A people spent. And yet they still lost. The bottom line: out-of-town developer money doesn’t always get you what you want. The locals still rule their own destiny in Encinitas. So what does this mean in Oceanside, a much bigger city, which has many of the same developers drooling over high-density residential developments? Oceanside is currently run by a three-person majority, Jack Feller, Jerry Kern, Gary Felien, on the City Council that has no problem lining up with big developers. Nothing wrong with that. It’s part of our political system. Two of those three, Kern and Felien, happen to be up for reelection next year.They are known to be fond of developers and the San Diego Republican machine. But the problem is that most of us don’t share their unabashed appreciation of big developers and the GOP. Last year their political soul mate Jerome Stocks was booted off the Encinitas City Council. Local politics is about fixing potholes and making our city better. People want to feel connected with their local leaders. Kern and particularly Felien seem overly devoted to
the San Diego GOP Central Committee on which they have served. The fact that their Encinitas counterpart (Stocks) was flushed may or may not prove to be a hint of what will happen in Oceanside. Working in Kern/Felien’s favor is the fact that the city’s economy has turned around. They will undoubtedly say that they were the responsible adults in the room who steered Oceanside in the right direction. And of course there’s that incumbency thing. It’s easier to raise money when you’re on the inside. And they’ve got name recognition. I think both will run for reelection although some have said they heard Kern will not. In considering their reelection chances, there are some other realities in play that cannot be ignored. The biggest elephant in the room (GOP pun intended) has to be that Mayor Jim Wood cleaned Kern’s clock in the mayor’s race. Wood bested Kern by almost two-to-one. I just don’t think Kern shares Wood’s relatability. Felien is worse. He is distant, aloof and detached. Making my point that the probusiness troika may not be such a hot commodity is underscored by what happened in the race for the two council seats last November. Sure Jack Feller was re-elected, but Esther Sanchez got 4,600 more votes than Feller, and political novice Dana Corso was only 1,000 votes away from overtaking and unseating him. There are other factors,too.Both Felien and Kern pushed hard for exMarine and Chamber of Commerce
member Chip Dykes. Their endorsements didn’t work. Dykes got 6,000 less votes than Corso. All three endorsed Propositions E (vacancy decontrol) and F (charter amendments) in the June election. Both failed miserably. When the three pulled the ultimate power grab and took away many of the mayor’s appointment powers and gave it to themselves, they said they had a mandate since there were three of them, and that meant they represented the will of the people.The trio’s support of failed causes and poor showings at the polls does not seem to indicate any kind of voter mandate. Of course, it matters who else is out there that could give the incumbents a run for their money. Some insiders have said that Corso may try again. And then you have Jane Cinciarelli-Brunst, a 30-year employee of the city of Oceanside who was urged to run last year but decided against it at the last minute. She has deep roots in Oceanside and has all the charm and warmth that Felien lacks. She could be the charming and classy antidote to a council known for its harsh infighting. It is doubtful that Dykes will run again. After all, if he runs he would assuredly take votes away from either Kern or Felien and they don’t want that. Especially if it is a close race. Oceanside born and raised, Ken Leighton writes columns for The Coast News, the San Diego Reader and is an Oceanside business owner. He may be reached at oogumboogum@earthlink.net
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More consumerism from the California Public Utilities Commission — that was a fond hope of at least some of the voters who gave Jerry Brown a rare third term in the governor’s office. So far, they’ve been disappointed, even though Brown appointees now make up a majority of the five-member commission that decides what Californians pay for electricity, natural gas and (in some places) water. Under Brown’s appointees, the commission has encouraged a profusion of huge solar thermal energy projects guaranteed to fatten the coffers of companies like Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison. It has done little to punish PG&E for the negligence leading to the 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion that killed eight and destroyed many more
$700 million component. Edison has said the San Onofre problems came as a surprise, but a 2004 letter from a company executive shows the firm may have known years earlier there could be design flaws in replacement steam generators. Yet Edison still certified the new generator as a like-for-like replacement. The letter was released in May by Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, who pushed for extensive federal hearings while Edison was still trying to get the plant at least partially reopened. The issue for the PUC now is how much consumers should pay for the complex, lengthy process of taking down the plant and storing its high-level waste on site. News stories on financial aspects of the shutdown sometimes mention that San Onofre’s owners over decades have paid
Now comes a rare opportunity for the PUC to prove it is just as interested in the welfare of state residents and small business... homes. It has kept secret the costs customers will eventually pay for several new power sources. And more. This is California’s most powerful regulatory agency because once they’re appointed, commissioners can’t be removed even by the governor who named them. Now comes a rare opportunity for the PUC to prove it is just as interested in the welfare of state residents and small business as it is in helping giant utility companies. That chance sprang up when Ted Craver, chairman of Edison’s parent holding company, announced unexpectedly in early June that his firm will retire the troubled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station beside the Interstate 5 freeway on the Orange-San Diego county line. The plant is partially owned by San Diego Gas & Electric Co., but majority owner Edison operates it. Before that announcement, most effects of San Onofre’s troubles were in the hands of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which waffled for many months over whether to let the plant restart. It has produced no electricity since early 2012, when a leaking generator tube released a small amount of radioactive steam into the atmosphere. That quickly raised fears of a rerun of Japan’s Fukushima power plant disaster, in the long term the most frightening aspect of the monster tsunami that struck northeast of Tokyo in 2011. Ironically, it was a Japanese firm — Mitsubishi Heavy Industries — which built the generator that failed. Edison and Mitsubishi are currently battling over how much that company should pay as a consequence of all the problems caused by failure of its
more than $2.7 billion into a plant-retirement fund. But that’s not really company money; it all came from customers, built into electricity rates just as retirement expenses are for every nuclear power plant in America. Now it turns out that amount is not enough; there may be another $1 billion or so in costs. The PUC will decide whether consumers or company shareholders pick up that expense. The answer is obvious: the company should pay. Yes, many of its shareholders are senior citizens on fixed incomes who depend on steady dividends. But shareholders put in place the executives who let the generator tube problem fester for years while they hoped it would just go away. Like most corporate shareholders, they periodically elect the directors who hire management. So if management failed, that is ultimately their responsibility. So shareholders should now pay all expenses beyond the billions consumers have already kicked in. If the PUC doesn’t decide the issue in just that way, it will be continuing the consistent pro-corporate, anti-consumer stance it has adopted throughout PG&E’s San Bruno penalty process and many other questions for most of the last 40 years. By contrast, making Edison pay would be a signal things may be changing.
Elias is author of the current book “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It,” now available in an updated third edition. His email address is tdelias@aol.com