SDG&E; Papers May Question Merger’s Benefit to Customers

Corporate planning documents from several years ago that might be made public during coming months could suggest that San Diego Gas & Electric Co.’s proposed merger with Southern California Edison Corp. would not produce benefits for utility customers, SDG&E; Chairman Thomas Page said Friday.

“The documents might show that,” Page acknowledged during a Friday press conference at SDG&E;’s downtown office. “I don’t know what they will say.”

But Page discounted the importance of documents that might surface as federal and state regulators continue their review of the merger plan.

“I lose interest in what someone said three years ago,” Page said. “I’m concerned with what the assessment is today . . . the latest thinking on what is going to happen with costs . . . air quality . . . (and) employment.”

Page said the merger would deliver promised rate reductions and service improvements without hurting air quality. Federal and state regulators will approve the merger only if “we show value to the customers,” he said.

Some merger opponents believe that SDG&E; documents released during the government reviews will prove that, even as negotiations were being concluded in 1988, the utility’s board members doubted that the merger with Edison would be beneficial to SDG&E; customers.

The city of San Diego will present information from several secret SDG&E; planning documents in early February, when city attorneys resume depositions of Morris Sievert and Charles (Red) Scott, two former SDG&E; board members who resigned in protest over the merger plan.

“We hope to (use the documents and the depositions) to bring out the extent of the knowledge that the board of directors had at the time of the agreement,” Assistant City Atty. Les Girard said Friday. “We believe that the facts have remained the same,” and that the company “has just juggled the facts.”