City Asks for Secret Merger Proceeding

The city of San Diego, in a strange twist, has asked that the public be excluded from depositions of former San Diego Gas & Electric board of directors members Charles (Red) Scott and Morris Sievert when those proceedings resume Feb. 6.

Scott and Sievert are the two San Diego businessmen who resigned from SDG&E;’s board in 1988 to protest a proposed merger with Southern California Edison. During a previous deposition, Scott alleged that Edison executives offered bribes to SDG&E; board members in order to win approval of the proposed merger.

The city last year agreed to postpone further depositions after the utilities alleged that city attorneys were directing Scott and Sievert to testify about business dealings that, under California law, constitute proprietary information.

The depositions were put on hold with the expectation that a Public Utilities Commission law judge would eventually rule on whether testimony by the two businessmen was indeed privileged. However, PUC Administrative Law Judge Lynn Carew has yet to rule on whether specific documents that the two former board members will discuss during the depositions are covered by confidentiality rules.

The city, which has asked the PUC to open its continuing review of SDG&E;’s proposed merger with Edison, is “between a rock and a hard place,” acknowledged Les Girard, a deputy city attorney.

“Absent a decision as to the confidentiality of the documents, the depositions have to be closed to protect everyone’s interests,” said William L. Pettingill, a deputy city attorney. “Naturally, you’d think it was the utilities bringing this motion. We’d like for the hearings to be open.”

In a related action, Carew has declined to immediately rule on a request by the San Diego-based Copley Press that would make confidential documents submitted by the two utilities--and testimony offered during the upcoming depositions--available to newspaper reporters and the public. The Copley Press owns the morning San Diego Union and afternoon Tribune newspapers.

Now, only intervenors in the PUC review who have signed non-disclosure agreements enjoy access to the supposedly confidential papers. Similarly, only those who have signed the agreements will be admitted to the Scott and Sievert depositions.

In papers filed with the PUC, attorneys for the Copley papers argued that the Scott and Sievert depositions “should be opened to the public or, alternatively, should be stayed pending a complete determination” of whether the confidentiality issue is constitutional.

Earlier this week, Carew declined to postpone the hearings. In a written order, she indicated that the confidentiality questions raised by the Scott and Sievert depositions will be settled later.