To the editor of the STREET SHEET,

As a longtime reader and supporter of the STREET SHEET, I would like to make four crucial points about Proposition D for those of us who live and work in the shadow of two of the most poisonous private power plants in the country:

1. If the city had its own public power authority as mandated by federal law and if PG&E did not control City Hall all these years (which it still does to some extent, alas), there would most likely be no power plants at Hunters Point and Potrero Hill.
2. If by some wrong decision, a power plant had been built in our neighborhood, the neighborhood and the citizens could rise up and put on the pressure to close down the plant, just as the citizens of Sacramento did to close down its wrong-headed Rancho Seco nuclear power plant. The difference is that Sacramento has public power via the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), San Francisco does not have a public power authority.
3. With Prop D, the city will finally have the authority and the financing mechanism to close down the ruinous Hunters Point plant (PG&E) and to stop the expansion of the ruinous Potrero plant (Mirant, based in Atlanta, Georgia).
4. If PG&E wins its multi-million dollar campaign against D (using our money), the closure of the two plants will be a long, long time in coming, if ever. The energy future of our neighborhoods and the city will be determined in secret by PG&E and Mirant for the duration.

Sincerely yours,

Bruce

This entry was posted on Friday, November 1st, 2002 at 12:13 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.