Huntington Beach Power Plant Feud Turns Ugly

The president of a power plant that overlooks the shoreline in Huntington Beach has asked a judge to toss out most of the ballot language favoring a March measure that would make the plant pay an estimated $2.3 million in municipal utility taxes.

In fact, the only language that would be left in the ballot pamphlet argument favoring imposition of the tax would be: “Vote yes on Measure --.”

Ed Blackford, president of AES Huntington Beach, said the language used by Mayor Pam Julien Houchen and council members Debbie Cook, Ralph Bauer, Connie Boardman and Peter Green is false and misleading and amounts to the city trying to impose an “ugly tax” on the corporation.

Blackford’s lawsuit contends that the city’s argument in a planned voter pamphlet “contains pejorative and libelous attacks on AES and its power plant that undermine the integrity of the electoral process.”

The suit also asks the judge to remove the measure from the ballot altogether if he agrees that the pamphlet language is unlawful.

Specifically, Blackford objects to contentions contained in the ballot argument that:

* Imposing the tax on AES would help keep down the taxes of other Huntington Beach residents.

* The measure would simply make AES pay the same utility tax paid by all residents and businesses.

* AES is the only business in Huntington Beach that does not pay the utility tax.

* The “plant is ugly, pollutes our air and our ocean.”

* AES spent nearly $300,000 to defeat a similar measure in the last election and that voters should not “be fooled again.”

Scott Baugh, an attorney representing Blackford, said the measure “is aimed specifically at punishing AES because the City Council doesn’t like AES.”

During this summer’s energy crisis, AES was given fast-track approval by the California Energy Commission to restart two power generators that had sat idle since 1995.

The city unsuccessfully fought the move, saying the generators would cause excessive pollution and noise.

The city did win several concessions from the company, including requirements that air quality be independently monitored and that a noisy, high-emissions unit would be used less than originally proposed.

But the city did not succeed in forcing the company to pay $14 million to help offset potential damage to the environment.

The twin generators were to begin operating in September but are still being tested, an attorney for Blackford said.

If the ballot measure proposed by a City Council majority is approved, AES would lose an exemption from the municipal utility tax it now enjoys under city law.

A 5% utility tax would apply to the natural gas used by the plant to generate electricity.

Blackford’s lawsuit says that “until Huntington Beach is prepared to enact an ‘ugly tax,’ the aesthetic value of AES’s power plant . . . has nothing whatsoever to do with the propriety of increasing” the taxes it pays.

Councilwoman Cook responded that the city’s ballot argument in favor of the measure is factually correct and that she believes the court will not address any opinions it may contain.

“The courts have said unless a statement contains [factual errors], they won’t get involved. I don’t see any arguments of fact that we can’t win.”