SDG&E; Ticket Offer to Members of PUC Has Customers Irate

San Diego Gas & Electric Co. officials Wednesday defended their controversial offer to provide Super Bowl tickets to each member of the Public Utilities Commission, insisting that the move did not represent an effort to win favorable treatment from the regulatory agency.

Consumer watchdog groups, however, criticized the utility’s action as highly inappropriate and predicted that one commissioner’s decision to accept two tickets would erode public confidence in the state agency’s ability to be impartial.

“I think this puts the utility in the position of trying to influence appointed officials unduly,” said Gary Estes, founder of the San Diego Energy Alliance, an industry group working for rate stabilization. “As for the commissioners, I think it shows bad judgment to accept the offer. When you are in the public arena, you have the public’s trust in your care and you have to maintain an arm’s length distance to preserve it.”

Late last year, SDG&E; offered a pair of tickets to each of the PUC’s five members, according to Ronald Fuller, the utility’s vice president for governmental and regulatory affairs. Two members--Commission President Stanley Hulett and Frederick Duda--initially accepted but specified that they would pay the $100 face value price of the ticket, as well as all travel and lodging expenses.

Governor Offered Ticket

SDG&E; also tendered tickets to Gov. George Deukmejian, his chief of staff and appointments secretary, and four state senators whose districts are served by the utility. Fuller said three of the lawmakers--Sen. Waddie Deddeh (D-Bonita), Sen. Jim Ellis (R-El Cajon) and Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach)--accepted, as did Deukmejian’s appointments secretary, Martin Baxter.

In an interview Wednesday, Hulett said he was excited about going to the game but changed his mind about accepting SDG&E;’s invitation after learning of the exorbitant prices tickets are fetching on the black market. Scalpers are charging as much as $2,000 a seat for the event.

“I became concerned about the perception people would have, that I was somehow getting something beyond what I had paid for,” Hulett said, adding that the cost of the trip was another factor working against his attendance. “I decided my integrity is the most important thing to me and that . . . I might as well stay home and watch it on television.”

Despite his change of heart, Hulett argued that there “is nothing patently wrong with the offer” and said the “thought that two Super Bowl tickets would influence my decisions sort of offends me.”

Commissioner Duda, an Oakland attorney who will be attending Sunday’s game with his son Russ, said he accepted the offer because he believes there is no impropriety as long as he repays SDG&E; for the tickets. Duda likened his acceptance of the SDG&E; offer to his payment of $276 to Pacific Gas & Electric to attend a cruise to celebrate the Golden Gate Bridge’s anniversary party last summer. He said neither experience would bias his judgment of the utilities.

“It’s the duty of each person who has the responsibility of making decisions to make sure he has not been influenced in any way if he intends to participate in that decision,” Duda said. “This event will in no way color my judgment in making any decision on any pending or future case involving SDG&E.; . . . The fact that I’m paying them for a Super Bowl ticket does not mean I have any obligation to them.”

Critics, however, pointed out that while the ticket’s official price may be $100, Super Bowl seats are actually selling for far greater prices, making SDG&E;’s offer considerably more valuable.

“We’re talking about tickets in the sky box, which are selling for $2,000 or more, and SDG&E; is selling them for $100? I wish their electricity prices were that good,” said Michael Shames, executive director of the Utility Consumer Action Network (UCAN). “We have some very large battles coming up against SDG&E;, and it’s frightening to think that the people who will be making decisions on them are going to be wining and dining with SDG&E; executives at the football game.”

Mike Florio, an attorney for TURN (Toward Utility Rate Normalization), a statewide consumer group in San Francisco, echoed those concerns and said the ticket offer was one of the most significant such perquisites he had knowledge of.

“I’m really astonished the company would do such a thing,” Florio said.

A spokesman for the Fair Political Practices Commission said that offering free tickets was legal as long as commissioners and politicians who accept any gifts report them to the state at the end of the year. If PUC members reimburse SDG&E; for the tickets--as Duda did--they need not report the transaction at all.

Others Steered Clear

Officials with several other utilities around the state said they had not provided Super Bowl tickets or gifts of similar substance to the PUC and tried to steer clear of such a practice.

Tom McNaghten, a spokesman for Pacific Bell, said, “It’s not our policy. It’s not illegal, but there is a tendency for it to be perceived as something different by the consumers.” Pacific Bell did not obtain any tickets for the game.

Michael Davin, a spokesman for Pacific Gas & Electric in San Francisco, said that although he did not believe that company provided any tickets when the Bay Area was host to the Super Bowl in 1985, he does not see a problem with the practice as long as any gift is reported.

SDG&E; officials said they obtained the tickets through a non-utility subsidiary, Pacific Diversified Capital, which purchased a stadium skybox for $76,500 last year. Leasing a skybox entitled Pacific Diversified to 10 seats in the box--located in the corner of the end zone--and 10 seats elsewhere in the stadium. SDG&E; purchased the 20 tickets from Pacific Diversified at face value, using money from corporate profits, not from ratepayers, the utility said.

Fuller said the tickets not reserved for politicians and Duda will go to company officials and four people who have yet to be selected.

Though he is “sympathetic” to allegations about impropriety expressed by consumer groups, Fuller defended the offer of tickets as a routine part of his effort to get to know the regulators and elected officials he deals with.

Getting Acquainted

“One of my goals . . . is that I must help get rates down,” Fuller said. “In pursuit of those responsibilities . . . I must do business with public officials--local, state and federal. And so when I have the opportunity to offer someone something like this, my mind immediately goes to those people who I work with, and I work with the senators, the PUC commissioners, the city councilmen.”

Fuller said that while he never discusses business on a social occasion, mixing with commissioners and politicians is an important “opportunity to get better acquainted.” Still, in light of the outcry that news of the tickets has sparked, Fuller said he probably would not make such an offer if he had it to do over again.

“If I were out there and I got the impression that somehow we were taking money from the (consumer’s) bill to host some government official, I think that would be disturbing,” Fuller said. “I think probably that’s what concerns people most and I don’t blame them.”

SDG&E; had scheduled a press conference for Wednesday, during which Chairman Thomas Page was to tell ratepayers what’s in store for the coming year. The event was abruptly canceled Tuesday because Page had not had adequate time to prepare, a spokesman said. The cancellation had “nothing whatsoever” to do with the ticket flap, the spokesman said.

Two of the three state senators who will attend the game courtesy of SDG&E; said they see no conflict of interest in accepting the gift. State legislators are required to declare all gifts over $25.

Deddeh said he will report his two tickets to the state as he does any other gift and reacted angrily to the suggestion that it was inappropriate to attend the game for free: “It’s the Super Bowl in San Diego and we’re San Diegans,” he said.

Bergeson, whose husband is an avid Denver Broncos fan, said she found “offensive” the inference “that we could be put under some kind of influence regarding our votes . . . It does not put us in a position of being under undue influence.”

Customers Are Angry

Meanwhile, SDG&E; customers were reacting angrily Wednesday to news of the utility’s ticket offers, according to some barometers. Roger Hedgecock’s morning radio show on KSDO was flooded with input from callers criticizing SDG&E; for its actions.

Times staff writers Barry M. Horstman and Andrea Estepa contributed to this story.