EXCLUSIVE: Sacramento and San Bruno CA: Senator Hill Letter to Governor part 2 of 2

San Bruno Patch obtained a copy of Senator Hill’s letter (below) to Governor Brown about expectations for the next PUC president.

Tomorrow morning, Thursday, December 18, PUC President Peevey will attend his last voting meeting as commission president.

This letter is being published in two parts – this is part two.

Part one can be read at http://patch.com/california/sanbruno/exclusive-sacramento-and-san-bruno-...

December 8, 2014

The Honorable Edmund G. Brown

Governor of the State of California

State Capitol Building

Sacramento, CA 95814

Subject: Designation of a New California Public Utilities Commission President

Dear Governor Brown:

Subject: Designation of a New California Public Utilities Commission President

PART Two of this letter appears in the second of two articles.

3. Know the difference between a conference and a junket

In an environment where the typical ratepayer doesn’t know in which city the Commission resides, but the lobbyists of regulated utilities know how Commissioners take their coffees, a Commissioner must have the perspective to see the line between an open mindset and a cozy relationship—and must have the self-confidence to draw that line before a utility is tempted to test it. This applies even more so to the president, as other Commissioners defer to him or her as the Governor’s designated leader.

One clear and oft-repeated example of a failure to recognize the line between open and cozy is the “conference.” A fundamental difference exists between a conference that exists to exchange ideas and a “conference” that is merely a junket designed for interests to influence decisionmakers. One can draw the distinction quite easily: A conference is open to the public, whereas a junket is invitation-only. (One must also be wary of ostensibly open conferences with registration fees so high—often in the thousands—that the only people who can attend are from industries and their Commissioner invitees.)

In my time in the Legislature I have seen who from the Commission attends these “conferences,” and it is only Commissioners, their advisors, and sometimes division directors. These events are not only exclusive of the public but exclusive of subject matter experts on Commission staff. As Commission leadership regularly cited the economic downturn as the reason denying training to staff, it does not reflect well when Commissioners and their advisors’ travel grants for attending these junkets are routinely approved. The next president needs to set a clear example to his or her colleagues and to staff that, where inequity of access exists between utilities and the public, so does ethical hazard.

4. Remember that the “P” in PUC stands for “Public”

At a number of my news conferences on the Commission steps I have overheard reporters complain that people within the Commission, who won’t respond to inquiries with so much as a quote, must not care that no one trusts or respects it. We cannot have a president who remarks at Commission meetings how unfair the press is and how they don’t talk about all the good work the Commission does if the Commission won’t return media calls. One would have expected that an organization as widely criticized as this would have doubled-down its efforts to communicate all of the important work it undertakes.

Public relations, however, is the least of the Commission’s challenges in fulfilling its mandate to conduct the public’s business openly. The Commission has made obtaining public records extremely difficult. The City of San Bruno spent a year and a half and a small fortune in legal fees to extract from the Commission email communications between Commission staff and PG&E, and the city could only obtain these records after settlement in superior court. The Commission even maintains that judicial review of Bagley-Keene and the Public Records Act violations may not go to superior court, as is the case for other state boards and commissions, but that all complaints be brought as petitions for review before appellate or Supreme Court. Under this legal shield, the Commission has held invitation-only “stakeholder meetings” at which all five Commissioners are present—a practice that subverts the intent of Bagley-Keene, if not the letter of the law.

The new president may decide to continue to use legal maneuvering as a shield to obscure the public’s business, or he or she may embrace the public and take action to win back trust. We need a president who will choose the latter.

It is the president who by statute bears leadership responsibility. It is the president who holds the Commission accountable. It is the president who decides whether (and where) the regulated utilities will convene junkets. It is the president who ultimately decides whether the state’s future will be decided in the light of day, or in the dark corner of a restaurant over a couple bottles of good pinot.

The Commission is responsible for carrying out our shared priorities, not the least of which are safety, service reliability, and carrying the state into a new clean energy economy. We cannot afford a Commission that doesn’t have the trust of the California residents it exists to serve.

Governor Brown, I send to you my set of expectations for your new designee because I believe that whoever you choose will have a daunting set of challenges, and that individual needs to know what those considered critics of the organization believe that the Commission can be led to a dramatic improvement in its performance of the people’s work. I hope that you share these expectations and, if so, will pass them on to your new designated president, as such unanimity would send a powerful message.

The Commission’s greatest resource is a corps of talented staff dedicated to the mission of ensuring safe, reliable service to Californians at reasonable rates with an eye at providing our grandchildren with a healthier environment than was given to them. With an effective leader at the head of the Commission, I believe the organization will overcome its challenges and accomplish our shared goals.

Sincerely,

/s/JERRY HILL

Senator, 13th District

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Robert Riechel

Photo Credit: San Bruno Patch Archives

Source Credit: California State Senator Jerry Hill

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