Dead Mud Walking

And Joel Ventresca, chairman of the Coalition for Lower Utility Bills and MUD NOW, a pro-MUD campaign committee, and a candidate for the MUD board of directors, says he believes the outcome of the MUD vote will depend upon geography, not the number of votes. In Ventresca's eyes, a majority of voters residing on two-thirds of the land mass of San Francisco -- as delineated by the square footage of precincts -- will have to vote for the MUD measure for it to pass.

The utter confusion surrounding the voting issue is the stuff of lawsuits. But there is a lot of lawsuit stuffing around.

Last year, for example, PG&E notified the LAFCO that it had found a series of defects in the commission's MUD-forming methods. PG&E complained, among other things, that the petition to put the MUD on the ballot was incomplete; that the LAFCO was not correctly following the guidelines of state utility statutes; that the MUD could not be put to a vote until an environmental impact report is done (there still is nothing even remotely resembling an EIR for the district); and that the California Public Utilities Commission has to approve the creation of a MUD before it goes to the ballot.

To date, the LAFCO has not corrected these alleged defects.

Although they have avoided speaking about it publicly, MUD proponents clearly are worried about lawsuits. Should the November MUD fail at the ballot box or be tied up with legal challenges, the LAFCO plans to put what it calls a "Shadow MUD" on the ballot in March 2002. The Shadow MUD is identical to the November MUD, except in technical details that ostensibly cure a few of the objections listed by PG&E.

Political consultant Jim Ross, who does anti-MUD lobbying on behalf of AT&T Corp. and Pacific Bell Corp., puts it bluntly: "If the MUD passes, the utility companies will tie it up in court for the next 10 years."

Actually, legal action has already come to the MUD-formers.

Jim Sutton, a lawyer working for the Coalition for Affordable Public Services, a PG&E-funded campaign committee created to oppose public power, has filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court on behalf of Winchell Hayward, a city resident, against the LAFCO. The lawsuit claims that the LAFCO hired Simpson, the consultant who produced the "garbage" report, because he is biased in favor of the MUD, and that the hiring therefore constitutes an illegal use of public money.

"This is a bald-faced attempt to promote the passage of the MUD measure with public funds, and constitutes unlawful interference by LAFCO and its members with the democratic election process," Sutton claims. He says he is proceeding with the lawsuit -- despite Simpson's termination -- because Eisenberg has ordered Young to hire another energy consultant to finish Simpson's study. Sutton fears that the revamped report will also be biased and will become pro-MUD campaign propaganda.

And that's just PG&E's opening shot.

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At some point over the last year, LAFCO member Tom Ammiano, who is also the president of the Board of Supervisors, apparently realized that the MUD would be born on death row. Working with a team of deputy city attorneys, Ammiano invented the Municipal Water and Power Agency.

Unlike the MUD, which is vague in form, the shape of the water and power agency is spelled out in the charter amendment. Ammiano's agency would subsume the apparatus of the city's Public Utilities Commission, which operates our water and sewage systems, as well as the municipal hydroelectric generators at Hetch Hetchy reservoir in Yosemite National Park. It could issue hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue bonds without needing approval by the Board of Supervisors or the voters, as is now required. The superagency would be able to set utility rates -- which could be priced above or below prevailing rates -- without needing approval by the supervisors, as is now required. The agency's board members would have to answer to the voters every four years.

The core supporters for both public power measures are firmly in the "progressive left" of San Francisco politics, and generally can be seen as allies; for that matter, the Municipal Water and Power Agency and the MUD are billed by public power campaigners, including Ammiano, as "companion" measures. But it seems likely that the electoral success of the legally suspect MUD would in fact threaten the viability of a Municipal Water and Power Agency.

That is to say: What will most likely happen if both Measure I and Proposition F win in November?