“where PG&E has profoundly offended its customers…those are natural candidates for somebody with a better idea” –Former Energy Commissioner John Geesman, Marin Independent Journal, 6/9/10

Just as the press declared its own obituary premature by providing statewide, top-to-bottom, vigorous & determining coverage of the truth behind Prop 16 in the lead-up to Tuesday’s election, so you can see emerging coverage of what 16’s flame-out may predict for public power and community choice going forward.

Mark Toney, director of The Utility Reform Network, is quoted by Marin IJ journalist Rick Halstead as saying, “Far more people will have heard of community choice and public power than ever heard of it before and some of those people are going to want it.”

Halstead also quotes John Geesman, Former Energy Commissioner and author of the always incisive and gratifying (though impossibly URL’d) Prop 16 blog: “Geesman said enterprising advocates for community choice aggregation and municipal utility models will be able to ‘go through these election results with a fine-tooth comb and cherry pick.

“Because there are some communities where PG&E has profoundly offended its customers, and those are natural candidates for somebody with a better idea,’ Geesman said.”

I can attest that Halstead sat taking close notes through a grinding number of board and council meetings in Marin through its lengthy ascension. He wrote careful, often critical but accurate accounts as Marin Clean Energy lurched its way through one PG&E firing zone after another toward its May 7th launch date this year. The guy shows up–he knows this story. For the full June 9th article, click here. (June 9, 2010; Richard Halstead, Marin Independent Journal)

Previously unimaginable levels of CCA (Community Choice Aggregation) education were achieved through the nearly 70 papers who came out against Prop 16, the Voter’s Guide de facto guide to CCA vs. IOU that went to California’s 16 million voters, and the outreach of the hundreds and hundreds of organizations, agencies, municipalities & leaders opposed to 16.

What’s next? Here’s next, from the Sonoma County’s Press Democrat, where Ann Hancock and Dick Dowd lay out clear next steps for communities around the state (beginning with San Francisco, then Sonoma, then the rumored 9 other communities closely examining Marin Clean Energy’s model) looking at their own local clean energy options in the aftermath of Prop 16: [...]

Enjoy the latest and clearest from resoundingly reelected super-Supervisor Susan Adams, Interim MCE Director Dawn “Standing Ovation” Weisz, Beth Rasmussen and a triumphing-over-hayfever MCE Vice-Chair Shawn Marshall of Mill Valley’s City Council. All hosted Monday night by Sunrise Center’s Lori Grace, who provided angel funding at crunch time for MCE and fought Prop 16 like a terrier. I mean that in a good way:

If you’re fed up with PG&E/Commonsense trashmail (the sheer waste, expense & strongarming fearfest of it all), here’s how to jot a quick note to the local papers. Maybe tie your comment in to Rick Halstead’s excellent piece on Sat. Feb. 27 exposing PG&E’s funding of Commonsense, and their $35M anti-Marin Clean Energy Prop 16 campaign. Note–include name and address and phone for verification purposes or they won’t print. Email me the instructions for other papers to include if you like:

1. Marin IJ Letters to the Editor– 250 word maximum, E-mail submissions are preferred.

Submit on-line here: opinion@marinij.com as an attached document or in the body of an email.

2. Mill Valley Herald or MarinScope-250 word maximum
Submit on-line here: http://www.marinscope.com/forms/letters/

3. Pacific Sun–Submit letters to letters@pacificsun.com

4. West Marin Citizen- submit to: editor@westmarincitizen.com

5. Pt. Reyes Light- limit 250 words http://www.ptreyeslight.com/letter_editor.shtml

6. San Francisco Chronicle Letters to the Editor- 200 word limit- http://www2.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1

If you’re in Marin or San Francisco, you’ve got a wall of junkmail coming at you from PG&E. Oh, beg pardon. You have a wall of junk coming at you from “The Commonsense Coalition.” This is a coalition of one, and that one is PG&E.

In teeny tiny letters, in ever more pale ink, you may be able to find the line on those mailers that says something about PacificGas&Electric. Or maybe you left your magnifying glass at home and you can’t find PG&E on there.

Regardless, these 100% PG&E mailers are everywhere, they’re expensive as heck, and they’re clearly meant to scare the pants off us. If we didn’t have brains in our heads, it might be hard to know what to do about it.

First, know that this is a straight out disinformation campaign. These mailers are packed with the same tired ol’ threats PG&E’s Joe Nation has been trotting out in council meetings (rebutted, again and again) since 2008. Some of them are the same threats (again, examined and rejected) used by PG&E to generate fear and confusion around San Joaquin’s CCA in a devastating disinformation campaign down there. As they’ve made clear to their shareholders, PG&E has one motive behind everything they throw at this: STOP the CCAs. Halt the threat to earnings.

It’s faux grassroots on a boardroom budget, with just that one simple goal: shut the competition down. PG&E knows Marin Clean Energy inside out. They know it will succeed, and they know it will compete. If it can just survive PG&E’s onslaught. Why else would PG&E go to these extraordinary measures and $35 million dollar budgets to stop it?

So, back to that trashmail. Maybe you’re more sane, but I am officially UP TO HERE with this torrent of costly PG&E mailers flooding the homes and businesses of my community, telling us how scared to be and what to think.

Here is one Do Something I’m using to offset infuriation:

SEND PG&E’S TRASHMAIL SOMEWHERE CONSTRUCTIVE: The CPUC
1. Pull your PG&E/Commonsense mailers out of the recycling (or out of the bin at the post office–ours was clean & dry!)
2. Stick the mailers in a manila envelope or one of those priority packets at the post office, and address it (below)
3. Jot the short STICKY NOTE VERSION below on yes, a sticky note or notecard to enclose with your mailers
…Or copy & paste the longer LETTER VERSION below and print it as a cover letter to your PG&E mailers packet.

(Are you an email-only type? Copy from below and paste into an email to publicadvisor@cpuc.ca.gov. Use this is subject line: CCSF “Petition to Modify” Rulemaking 03-10-00)

4. If by post, mail to–

Commissioner Nancy Ryan
CA Public Utilities Commission
505 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102

STICKY NOTE VERSION:

Dear Commissioner Ryan,
Congratulations and welcome to the CPUC! Please take the right first steps toward an honorable legacy. We urgently need expedited action on the CCSF “Petition to Modify” Rulemaking 03-10-003. PG&E’s saturation attacks (see enclosed) on Marin County’s CCA are in blatant violation of state law AB 117. Isn’t this the job of the CPUC? Thank you,

COPY & PASTE LETTER VERSION:

Commissioner Nancy Ryan
CA Public Utilities Commission
505 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102

RE: CCSF “Petition to Modify” Rulemaking 03-10-003
Urging expedited action in consideration of heavy consumer confusion and the escalation of opt out interference by PG&E in Marin County

Dear Commissioner Ryan,

Congratulations on your successful appointment to the California Public Utilities Commission. You heard about the troubles in Marin in your first minutes “on the bench.” The citizens and ratepayers who have worked years to see the Marin Clean Energy CCA bring choice to our County through a diligent and exhaustive participatory process are appalled, now, at the level of aggressive interference by the incumbent utility against the CCA. This interference, similar to the interference noted in the CCSF Petition to Modify, is in clear violation of the intent of state law AB 117. AB 117 requires the utility to “cooperate fully” with the CCA, and nothing about what we’re experiencing daily in Marin looks like “cooperation.”

The enclosed mailers from PG&E’s deceptively presented front group, Commonsense Marin, are just a sample of what PG&E has been mailing to the households and businesses of Marin County. This level of marketing interference is impossible for any public agency to answer, due to both financial and legal constraints. To any eye, the intent of PG&E’s unconstrained materials is clear. It is to confuse and alarm consumers about Marin Clean Energy.

Please note in particular the cynical use of minute type and singularly pale ink to obscure the fact that Pacific Gas & Electric is underwriting these communications.

Please note as well the misleading blanket invitation to all customers to “opt out,” when only Phase 1 customers are in their opt out period and may do so. The other remaining approximately 80% of users will have to opt out again when the Phase II opt out period begins 13-16 months from now. This unnecessary confusion hurts all parties, and should be stopped.

Finally, with PG&E’s Prop 16 ballot initiative pending June 8, 2010, any delay establishing an expedited temporary injunctive relief process for CCAs is, in effect, a decision. As stated in the CCSF Petition to Modify (pg27), “Irreparable harm could result.” Please act swiftly to protect and enforce the intent of AB 117.

Thank you,
_______________________

So that’s all for this post, big update on PG&E’s $35M Prop 16 to follow.

Warmly, Megan & the MMOB

P.S. PROP 16–If you want some immediate and gratifying elucidation, here’s a 30-min excerpt from the Prop 16 hearing in Sacramento: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zun-xjFWXuo

Here’s a quick and pretty goofy clip Jim Heddle (Ecological Options Network) and I put together on a Sunday afternoon hitting latest Marin Clean Energy highlights. Feel free to grab it to send around if it’s useful enough. I can send the embed code if you don’t know how to pull it from here. Best, Megan

MMOB + Transition + Alliance up for a little Marin Energy push against PG&E?

Hello hello -

So last year (can it be that long ago?), together with the Sustainables, Sierra Club, and the rest of the groups in our hearty Marin Clean Energy alliance—PLUS the West Marin Localization Network now Transition West Marin—we MMOBsters and Alliance and Transition folks were all sweetly successful in helping get Marin Clean Energy through the hurdles to form the Marin Energy Authority.

Now it’s crunch time again. That little post-inaugural “Hope Hiatus” is long past and local action’s really the only daily answer, so….

Marin can KICK ASS on climate, with Marin Energy, but PG&E’s pulling out all stops to quash it here, then close the door on all future efforts toward local power in the state with a ballot initiative, because that’s what monopolies do. Marin’s out in front right now, will be the only jurisdiction in California under contract as a CCA, if this next push goes right. PG&E’s efforts including that stinky initiative on the June 3rd ballot, a lawsuit against the Marin Energy Authority, $30 million dollars (I hear) spent against it so far, and lies–plenty of lies. (One piece of great news is that San Rafael is no longer wobbly, with the recent election of the EXCELLENT Mark Levine to that City Council, joining stalwart Marin Energy supporters Greg Brockbank & Damon Connelly. Also, there has been a somewhat successful complaint filed by Barbara George against PG&E with the CPUC––to prevent them using OUR Public Goods efficiency monies in quid pro quo offer$ to the Novato City Council against joining Marin Energy.)

So the City Councils are being leaned on hard by PG&E to back out in the next 6 weeks, with a calendar of their meetings below. The Marin Energy Authority votes on February 4th to go with the (hold your nose) Shell contract or not.

“Hang tough, Councilmembers!” There is a call out for letter-writing and/or bodies at the City Council meetings. It might also be useful to consider MMOB et al postcards to the members of the CA Public Utilities Commission in SF to rein in PG&Es spending & interference in our local democratic decision-making.

Here is the schedule so far, fyi:

MARIN ENERGY CALENDAR (I pulled details off of www.marinenergyauthority.org)

• ROSS CITY COUNCIL December 10, 7-8pm
  31 Sir Francis Drake Blvd.
• BELVEDERE CITY COUNCIL Monday, December 14, 7-8pm
  City Hall, 450 San Rafael Avenue
• MARIN ENERGY EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING Wednesday, December 16, 10-11am
  Marin Civic Center, Room 324a
• NOVATO MARIN ENERGY FORUM Wednesday, December 16th, 7-9pm
  Novato Forum on Marin Energy Authority; Novato City Council members attending (www.sustainablenovato.org for more)
  Location: Novato School District Office at 1015 7th Street, Novato
• MILL VALLEY CITY COUNCIL, MARIN ENERGY Monday,January 4th, 7:30-8:30pm
• MARIN ENERGY MONTHLY BOARD MEETING, Thursday, January 7th, 7-9pm
  1 McInnis Parkway, San Rafael
• BELVEDERE CITY COUNCIL MARIN ENERGY, Monday, January 11th, 7:30-8:30pm
  City Hall, 450 San Rafael Ave
• SAUSALITO CITY COUNCIL MARIN ENERGY, Tuesday, January 12th, 7-8pm
  420 Litho Street
• MARIN ENERGY MONTHLY BOARD MEETING: VOTE ON CONTRACT! Thursday, February 4th, 7-9pm
  1 McInnis Parkway, San Rafael

ADDRESSES

CALIFORNIA PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION
505 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102
415.703.2782
800.848.5580 (Toll Free)

CPUC Commissioners
Michael R. Peevey, President
Dian M. Grueneich
John A. Bohn
Rachelle Chon
Timothy Alan Simon

USEFUL DOCUMENTS FROM MARIN ENERGY AUTHORITY
This powerpoint shows a new-to-me VERY useful slide on the COSTS to the cities to comply with state law AB32 emissions reductions WITH and WITHOUT Marin Energy. Big savings with Marin Energy. Another one shows how Marin Energy blows PG&E out on cost savings over time, and of course, on emissions reduction.

This doc is Marin Energy’s very effective response to the glop put out in Monday’s Grand Jury report on Marin Energy:

MMOB has gone all-out local and fairly off-the-computer these days, which has been lovely indeed. Here’s a bit of our latest:

MMOB got swept off our feet by Rob Hopkins’ Transition Towns concept back in 07, now known as Transition Initiatives. MMOB hosted workshops and co-sponsored events around Transition, then joined with our many allies in West Marin to form www.transitionwestmarin.org, the 28th “official” Transition Initiative in the States. Jan Markle is doing a wonderful job with that Transition West Marin site — do check it out for photos, video, etc. from our local Transition activities. For more background on Transition, there’s a nice wiki at www.transitiontowns.org, some excellent book and movie resources at Rob Hopkins’ blog www.transitionculture.org; and then buckets of goodness at the United States site www.transitionus.org. A grand thing about Transition is that ANYTHING you do to build community resilience and reduce fossil fuel dependence & emissions counts. Policy changes matter, composting toilets matter, town celebrations & art matter, work against corporate personhood matters, volunteering in the classroom matters, elections matter, getting arrested to stop coal matters, making your own stuff matters. And having a big town turnout for 350.org day matters too!

Transition West Marin & Friends sit for 350.org (photo by Art Rogers)

Kris & Megan with MMOB’s Solar-Paneled Tea Trolley

MMOB’s Thank You banner for Transition Bo-Stin’s splendid bike path celebration gets signed by all the kids!

Then, ever since Nicasio rancher John Wick spoke up during our “Exploring Transition in West Marin” workshop, we’ve been hogwild for his Marin Carbon Project, and are hosting public awareness events in its support. Check it out at www.marincarbonproject.org. The basics are this: a 3-year study of how grazing lands can be better managed to radically accelerate their CO2 sequestration capacity is turning out early results that blow the doors off expectations. For some rough video from film crew EON.org, watch John Wick on this topic:

Finally, MMOBsters Gail, Bernie & Lisa are active on the Marin Clean Energy front, which is in the contract phase and under the usual big money attacks from PG&E. What are YOU up to? Email megan@themmob.org with any goodies.