Few In North County Join Merger Fray

With almost missionary fervor, San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor has regularly condemned the proposed merger of San Diego Gas & Electric with Southern California Edison, and has summoned other cities to the cause.

But up in San Marcos, they don’t much care that O’Connor has declared the utility marriage the most important issue of her political career, or that San Diego already has spent $2 million fighting the plan.

“There’s the attitude that San Diego has always treated North County like orphans,” said San Marcos Mayor Lee Thibadeau, who suggests that the county’s crown city has a thing or two to learn about managing its own affairs before handing down judgments to its neighbors.

For all O’Connor’s warning that the immense utility has been a pro-growth force in the Southland’s urban sprawl, Thibadeau scoffed, “San Diego is not far from becoming another L.A. itself.”

And one city away from San Marcos, Escondido Mayor Doris Thurston isn’t exactly dabbing moist eyes at the prospect of losing SDG&E;, with its legendary high energy bills for consumers.

“We have to face the fact that Southern California Edison is on the cutting edge and uses state-of-the-art equipment” that could slash rates, Thurston said.

It’s been a year and a half since the merger plan was introduced, and--aside from these comments during interviews--so far there has been virtual political silence by the nine cities in North County.

Not one city council has taken a position on the issue, and if anything, most cities seem to view the boiling merger controversy as a nasty little ruckus off in some distant land. “We are remote from the issue,” said Thurston. “It’s more or less become a City of San Diego issue.”

Although that sentiment might not be universally shared in North County, there is clear confusion over the complex merger proposal and a reluctance to get involved just yet in the issue’s noisy polemics.

In a typical comment from a North County mayor, Bud Lewis of Carlsbad groused, “There is so much propaganda going out, it’s hard to tell what’s what. We haven’t taken a stand one way or the other.”

Such remarks come from the very community leaders whose aid will be sought by merger foes to help sway public opinion against the utility deal. The county Board of Supervisors has tentatively decided to hold a countywide June advisory election on the merger.

The California Public Utilities Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission are reviewing the proposal.

Michael Shames, executive director of Utility Consumers Action Network, said he counts on the northern city leaders to have a “significant impact on the public perception” against the merger. He said “the greatest contribution the cities could make is participating in the advisory vote.”

In February or March, “that’s when we start going around asking for their support,” he said.

Actually, O’Connor has already done that, appealing for backing before the San Diego County division of the League of California Cities and coming away with a letter attacking the virtue of the merger.

But that was early in the game, in December 1988, and since then there’s been nothing to suggest that North County is genuinely galvanized on either side of the issue.

“I think everybody in North County is taking a wait-and-see position,” said Oceanside City Councilwoman Lucy Chavez.

It probably would take a bolder alliance than that for San Diego to prevail. Paul Downey, spokesman for O’Connor, said, “It would certainly be helpful to San Diego’s case to have strong opposition to the merger from the other cities.” But, so far, he said, “San Diego, the county and Chula Vista have really been the three big players” against the merger.

With the cities in North County more geographically and politically distant, San Diego may find more sympathy among its southern neighbors, such as Coronado, with which it has a close rapport.

Coronado Mayor Mary Herron, whose City Council has not yet taken a position on the merger, said, “We’re sitting back, watching the big guns shoot at each other. . . . We see no real reason to get drawn into it as yet.”

However, Coronado’s mere proximity to San Diego has resulted in the two cities’ working together to solve mutual problems such as sewage disposal.

“I would characterize it as a cordial relationship,” said Herron, adding, though, that the key factor in deciding whether to back the merger is whether it would lower utility rates for Coronado residents.

The San Diego City Council voted unanimously Nov. 30 to oppose melding SDG&E; with Rosemead-based Edison to create a 4.8-million-customer utility district, the nation’s largest. The vote came one year after SDG&E; directors approved a $2.4-billion stock trade offer with Edison’s parent company, SCEcorp.

O’Connor pronounced it the “most important merger in this country” and the most critical issue of her political career. Her council’s vote authorized City Atty. John Witt to determine whether the city has legal power to block the merger by refusing to let SDG&E; transfer city franchise agreements to Edison.

Those franchises give SDG&E; the right to send electricity, gas and steam using city streets, highways and rights of way.

While a court ruling on that franchise question is sought, the broader controversy rages on. It focuses on whether the merger would mean loss local control over providing energy, result in higher or lower rates for consumers, how it would affect the county’s environment and whether it would cause SDG&E; jobs to be eliminated in San Diego.

Opponents glumly regard the merger as promising only to foul San Diego County with everything that’s evil about Los Angeles, with its pell-mell development and pollution.

But most North County city governments, for a variety of reasons, aren’t quite willing yet to embrace that characterization of the merger, and the issue surely hasn’t aroused the public. “Usually the people are very good about talking with me when something is on their mind,” said Vista Mayor Gloria McClellan. “There just hasn’t been much interest expressed.” Her comment was echoed throughout North County.

One reason the merger hasn’t stirred much emotion is that San Diego is often seen as having a separate political reality from North County, where smaller cities face the crush of their own local problems.

Vista, population 61,000, is chiefly worried about school crowding. Oceanside, with 107,000 people, is grappling with street gangs, growth and downtown redevelopment. Poway, 41,000, is struggling against outside-generated traffic congestion to keep its rural image. And so on.

Solana Beach Mayor Marion Dodson said of the utility merger: “There seems to be a lot of apathy. It’s not a city issue. We have other, more local issues.”

Of course, O’Connor has a fundamentally different opinion on the merger’s countywide significance. Downey, the mayor’s spokesman, said “the people in North County will be affected as adversely as the people in San Diego. They have a large stake in this. There’s the likelihood of increased rates, increased pollution and loss of local control.”

Yet another perspective comes from Larry O’Donnell Jr., chief spokesman for San Diegans for the Merger.

“North County feels it’s growing and has its own set of problems,” he said. “The city of San Diego is kind of like a big brother that sits there and tries to speak on behalf of the entire county.”

However, enemies of the merger who want to keep local control by holding fast to SDG&E; labor under a rather general dislike for the utility company, which alienated many customers by dramatically raising rates during the 1970s. Although energy bills are lower now, SDG&E; is still known as having some of the highest rates in the country.

Carlsbad’s Lewis said “SDG&E; has had a bad record. During the crunch of the 70s, we were paying more for energy than any other utility around. They’ve got a poor management record.”

Encinitas Mayor Pam Slater complained that “SDG&E; has suffered from some mismanagement. I feel we’re paying way in excess of what we should be paying.” Yet she might not be happier with a merger, arguing that any non publicly-owned utility “is a monopoly and an opportunity for the public to be ripped off. And we have been ripped off.”

SDG&E;’s rates have fostered among some North County politicians a willingness to at least hear what Edison would offer through a merger and not dismiss the utility simply because it is identified with the Los Angeles area. As Escondido’s Mayor Thurston put it: “I’m not as sensitive to the big city as some people are.”

There are exceptions to that view, such as Del Mar Mayor Brooke Eisenberg, whose council hasn’t voted whether to actually oppose the merger but has “voiced some strong concern” over fear that “we would become an appendage in the Southern California Edison conglomerate.”

For the most part, though, North County government leaders are inundated with facts from organizations on both sides of the merger question, and few local politicians know what to believe. Slater said, “We’ve (council members) individually been given a barrage of paper to read.”

If nothing else, that has created much ambiguity about the merger and a desire among North County’s cities to do little or nothing politically until an objective party completes findings on the proposal.

“Right now, the jury’s still out on the facts,” said Poway Deputy Mayor Jan Goldsmith. “We all expressed a desire to receive facts from an independent source. . . . A lot of these issues are beyond the smaller cities.”

Thus, some cities have placed a high premium on research undertaken by the Public Utilities Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The cities’ delay in political involvement until more is known suits O’Donnell fine. “If San Diego is so upset,” he said, “why aren’t the North County cities so upset? Because they’re acting correctly.”