Utility-Merger Backers Sue Council Over Closed Session

Alleging a violation of the state’s open-meetings laws, a nonprofit organization has sued the San Diego City Council for approving in closed session a $1.5-million payment to private attorneys and other consultants hired in connection with the proposed merger of San Diego Gas & Electric Co. and Southern California Edison.

San Diegans for the Merger contends in the lawsuit filed Wednesday that the Aug. 8 vote was illegal because it was conducted behind closed doors. The council has taken no formal position on the proposed utility merger, despite Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s longstanding opposition to it.

The organization, which contends that the expenditure must be debated publicly, will attempt to win a temporary restraining order barring the city from spending the money at a hearing in Superior Court on Oct. 12

“What they’ve done is carve a loophole in the Brown Act that you can drive a Russian field army through,” said Larry O’Donnell, spokesman for San Diegans for the Merger. O’Donnell said the allocation was a political decision on the use of taxpayers’ money that should have been made in public.

Brown-Act Criteria

Deputy City Atty. Les Girard said the Aug. 8 closed session is legal under the “pending litigation” exception to the Brown Act because the city is involved in proceedings before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the state Public Utility Commission, which must approve the merger.

“We are participating before an adjudicatory body that will determine whether this merger is in the best interests of the people of San Diego,” Girard said.

The lawsuit claims, however, that the “pending litigation” exception is not applicable because the Aug. 8 meeting did not meet Brown Act criteria that allow attorney-client discussions only if public discussion would damage the city’s position in the litigation.

The council this year has made several decisions that may have exceeded limits on closed sessions imposed by 1987 amendments to the state’s open meetings laws, according to experts contacted by The Times.

After appropriating the $1.5 million in closed session Aug. 8, the council reconvened in public and approved a resolution authorizing the appropriation. The money was authorized for six firms, including two groups of private attorneys and economic consultants.