Tim Redmond of the San Francisco Bay Guardian writes yesterday in his analysis titled “Everyone hates PG&E” that “the results from last night’s election are fascinating. A $50 million campaign, with the opposition struggling to come up with $100,000 — and PG&E still lost. Calitics has a fun comparison that makes one of the key points: [...]
This isn’t about our right to vote. This is an abuse of California’s initiative system and springs from PG&E recently losing customers to municipalities choosing to find other sources of electricity.
The San Diego Union Tribune calls Prop 16 one of the most deceptive advertising campaigns of all time. Congratulations, PG&E.
The major objection to the proposition is the two-thirds vote requirement. The Coalition believes voters should be allowed to have the choice of electricity providers without requiring the supermajority vote that is frequently difficult to garner.
“PG&E has raised rates well over 30 times since 2006,” Vice-Mayor Art Pimentel said. “My issue is that we have a company that wants to increase their stranglehold on the community through use of the democratic process…Don’t just take the TV commercials and mailers at face value.”
Felicity Barringer at the New York Times Green Blog covers Prop 16, writing that PG&E’s spending dwarfs spending by out-of-sate oil companies: In California, where government-by-ballot-proposition has been raised to a high art, energy companies are pouring millions of dollars into efforts to protect their interests. The one that has gotten the most attention is [...]
If you totally love the giant, for-profit, monopolistic utility that provides your electricity – and if you want to make it essentially impossible for anyone else to get into the electricity business ever again, as long as we all shall live – then Proposition 16 is the ballot measure for you!
Proposition 16 is the worst of the worst of the measures on the June ballot. This initiative would rewrite the state constitution to restrict municipal electric utilities from expanding service unless voters approved it by a two-thirds vote. It is so badly drafted that many developers are opposing it for fear it would trigger a two-thirds vote whenever new hookups are planned for a new subdivision in an area served by public power.
PG&E is told to stop using phone and direct-mail tactics that could derail competition from the state’s first nonprofit group to offer electric service. TURN’s Mark Toney tells the Marc Lifisher of Los Angeles Times PG&E will stop at nothing to hold their customer base hostage to their high rates.
San Diego Reader blog Encanto Gas Holder asks if Californians should give up our right to a majority vote for PG&E’s Prop 16 and easily concludes NO.