Mayor Likens S.D., Lithuanian Energy Battles

San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor on Monday escalated her political attack against Southern California Edison’s proposed takeover of San Diego Gas & Electric by comparing San Diego to Lithuania and its struggle with the Soviet Union for energy supplies.

In a speech that drew applause and a handful of catcalls, O’Connor told members of the state Public Utilities Commission that Edison’s bid for SDG&E; “strikes at the heart of what makes San Diego sovereign as a city.”

“As you watch Lithuania struggle against the energy embargo of Moscow, think of San Diego facing such pressures from Los Angeles and SCE,” said O’Connor, who described the merger as leading to “decay in our community.”

O’Connor spoke during the 3 p.m. PUC public hearing at the Shrine Temple in Kearny Mesa, the first of 13 scheduled on the proposed merger in Southern California. The PUC held a second hearing on Monday night to hear citizen comment on the proposed $2.4-billion stock swap merger that would create the nation’s largest electric utility with 4.8 million customers.

San Diego will not “retreat” from its fight to keep SDG&E; from transferring utility franchises to Edison, O’Connor said. During the past year, San Diego City Council has voted to spend about $2.5 million to stop the merger.

“Leave us our 100-year-old utility,” O’Connor said. “To do otherwise will destroy one more thread in that fragile web that unites us as an identifiable community.”

About 100 San Diegans and a sprinkling of out-of-towners were scheduled to speak during the afternoon meeting that drew about 350 people. John Ohanian, one of two PUC commissioners at the meeting said the commission is determined to learn “if the merger happens, what are the benefits to the ratepayers . . . That’s the bottom line.”

Edison Vice President Mike Peevey on Monday reiterated the utilities’ oft-repeated claim that the merger would generate $1.7 billion in cost savings that would be passed along to customers. “We are so certain these savings exist, we have guaranteed them,” Peevey said. “If we do not produce the savings we claim, the differences will come from our shareholders.”

Peevey told commissioners that the merger would reduce air pollution in San Diego and bolster utility competition in the western United States.

Merger opponents, many sporting badges and buttons supplied by Utility Consumers Action Network, a San Diego-based consumer group that is opposing the merger, argued that Edison and SDG&E; can’t prove that the proposed merger would bring lower rates.

“If this merger goes through (the PUC), our opinion of government will sink even lower than it is today,” said Joe Stern, who represented a group of San Diego senior citizens organizations.

Another opponent urged commissioners to view the proposed merger as akin to Prop 103, the successful statewide initiative that has yet to deliver promised insurance rate reductions. “That’s what you’re going to get with (Edison’s promised) 105 rate decrease--nothing,” the San Diegan said.

Guy Miller told commissioners that SDG&E; executives only agreed to the business deal because of the “sleaze effect of golden parachutes” granted by Edison.

Audrey Kraus of TURN, a largely Northern California consumer group that is mustering anti-merger forces in Greater Los Angeles, described Edison as “the sleaziest, greediest utility in this state . . . we think San Diego would be far better off with its own utility.”

Proponents, some of whom were recruited by San Diegans for the Merger, an Edison-funded organization, urged commissioners to approve the merger that was first proposed in November, 1988.

Michael Kirby, a San Diegan who operates the San Diego Ice Arena in Mira Mesa, complained that SDG&E; has historically been unable to match Edison’s rates and level of service.

Richard Hanshaw, a 30-year resident of San Diego who supports the merger, told commissioners that their decision “must be made on fact, not emotion . . . and you’re hearing a lot of emotion.”

Prior to Monday’s PUC hearing, San Diegans for the Merger announced that it had gathered 156,000 signatures from San Diegans who support the merger.

Larry O’Donnell, founder and president of the group, on Monday deflected criticism from merger opponents who argued that some San Diegans who signed the petitions were not properly informed about what they were signing.

“I think that most of the people who signed it understood what was going on,” O’Donnell said shortly before the PUC hearing began. “We felt it was important to get it on the record that there is support for the merger in San Diego.”

The petition drive was supported by the United Domestic Workers of America and the Metropolitan Fellowship Foundation.

“The petitions are outright fraud,” argued Robert Hudson, executive director of the Coalition for Local Control, an anti-merger group formed by civic, business, labor and citizen group leaders. “I approached many signers and found they were opposed or at best indifferent to the merger and felt defrauded when I told them the petition was funded by an Edison front group,” Hudson said.