 I'm Martha Teter, and I'm your host for Timely Topics with Martha Teter. My guest today is Mary Zoo. Mary is a Davis citizen, Davis resident, concerned citizen. And we are here to talk to you about Proposition 16, which is on the ballot for very soon, just a couple of weeks from now, June 8. And we're particularly concerned that people understand this proposition, which would severely limit local communities in California from choosing who they get power from. If past Proposition 16 would require a two-thirds majority in order to change power from current providers, which in most cases is PG&E. So... Yes, Martha, it really is a preposterous proposition. And we want to make sure the public understands what's at stake. Yeah, I think that if the public understood the proposition, then they would have a much better chance of not falling for the $35 million that PG&E is spending on the rhetoric for this. And this is why we're here, because the opposition, the vote, no, on 16 just doesn't have funds to match the millions of dollars. What is it, $35 million? Yeah, $35 million is expected to be spent. Which is peanuts out of their 1.22 billion profits from last year. So thanks to Davis Media Access for airing this. This is the people's voice. It's the poor man's way to get the truth out. And what we're going to do today is we're going to watch a number of videos that have been created as kind of a people's no on 16 campaign. And the videos that we're going to be showing are available for anyone watching this show. And I believe we have information on how to get those videos. And those videos you can share with friends through social networking. Some of the sites actually say how to do that, how to use their sites and embed the videos and to get the word out, to get the education about Proposition 16. The terrific videos, they sparkle with authenticity. And when I listen to this right to vote, I'm just outraged. You know, there's, I think everyone has a sense of what's right. And they know when they're being lied to. And the videos have the ring of truth. They really do. I think this first video especially is good in that regard. It's a man in the street video about how PG&E has effectively fooled this gentleman who's being interviewed at a local Earth Day fair. So we could have that first video. Yes, I am. Okay, so then you can tell us, we can contact you on Facebook. So tell us how to get to it. Okay, my name is D. Wayne Christmas. You can reach me at Pastor Daryl D.C. on Facebook. One is more American than Christmas. All right, why do you want to vote for the taxpayers' right to vote? Oh, because we have a right to have a say in what our government does. This is a democracy. So let me ask you a series of questions and. Monopoly or competition? Competition. 30% rate increase or community choice of rates? Community choice of rates. The demand for more nuclear power or the choice for green power? The choice for green power. What if I told you that Prop 16 is actually not about the taxpayers' right to vote, but about requiring a two-thirds majority just for your community to consider getting clean, green energy that is not fixed in price? That's horrible. We're already paying too much. We don't have any competition. It's only one company that runs everything. So whatever they throw out there, we have to accept. If you increase my PG&E next month, who can I go to? I can't switch from you and go to another company. That's too much power for one company. So if you saw that it said taxpayers' right to vote act, you would have voted for it? Yes. By the wording, yes. And now that you know more. No, vote against it. No, no, no, sir. No, vote against it. No, no, no, sir. No, vote against it. Obviously, this taxpayer had quite a different view of it. This is excellent. We're not going to be the uninformed during Christmas. No. We're going to be the informed one. Absolutely. When you know the facts, it's very simple. I think their campaign, which they call the taxpayer's right to vote, is particularly insidious on Facebook. I was on Facebook the other day, and I was going to get my mail and up-prop popped a survey which asked, did I want to have the right to vote? And yes or no? I think we got it. Right. 100 years ago. We got the right to vote quite a long time ago. Actually, women 1920. Women 1920, but in the Constitution, 1776 or whatever, very long time ago. And in fact, what the proposition suggests is that they're wanting the government not to have the right to change energy providers. So people should have the right to vote on what their energy source is. So that's their argument. But it's a particularly specious argument because everybody has the most communities, in fact, give people the right to choose in a vote if they're going to change a power company. It's a very small exception if they don't. And if they don't, we also have the right to influence local politics. Apparently, the way to competition to PG&E is either through a city council vote and we vote for council members or a vote from the electorate. And so this is our right to vote. You know, I think it's very interesting that Jerry Brown is the one who insisted on changing the wording. The name of this proposition, 16, was going to be right to vote. And that's what it would be on our ballots. And Attorney General Jerry Brown, to his credit, said that's just so deceptive. So now it's the new two-thirds requirement. Well, at least it is on the ballot. And all their advertising still says taxpayers right to vote. Yes, and that's hitting all the major networks. It's so heavily infested on the networks that even I caught several of them. And that's unusual that I see any of them. Yeah, so it's not about government power to change. It's about PG&E maintaining their monopoly on electric power and stifling the competition. I think this is really what it is about. And it's the old bugaboo about government is out to get you. So, you know, if it isn't government helping us, it's PG&E running it. So would you rather have a greed directing your life? And, you know, there's a history of some rather bad things that have gone down because industry has shareholders and profits in mind. They have, yes, they have a different motive. And this would really change that we would be more concerned about the well-being of the people than about the profit of PG&E. Another local community, I think it might have been in the Marin area where they have, in fact, gone to community choice of power. The next video is called The Community Speaks. Why not a Prop 16? Because I want local clean energy. Because it unfairly restricts my choice. Communities have to choose who we buy power from. No to Prop 16, because honest competition works. Monopolies are bad. We have two young grandchildren. One of them has asthma. Being able to breathe the air and, you know, not have dirty fuel coming from coal and oil and things like that is very important. It's important for all the children of the future. Because clean energy is the clean world. Families deserve the option of a clean energy future. No on 16, because California needs clean energy jobs, local clean energy jobs. This takes away power from my government to create those jobs and to create clean energy. We've got a lot of solar energy. We've got a lot of wind power. We just have a lot of options due to the geographic location of our state. Public power on the average charges approximately 30 percent less. I believe in free market and we always benefit the community. I'd like to be able to vote on the ability to have clean energy. And also the two-thirds requirement means that if I'm in the majority, I'm still not in the majority unless there are twice as many of me as anybody else. Strengthening our democracy. It strengthens our community. Monopoly is not a game. It takes away our choice. We need affordable power. Not rate hike after rate hike. Local jobs. They're the key to vibrant communities. Let's create a sustainable, healthy, future for all. Stop with the power graph. No. No. No on 16. Use your power. Vote no on Prop 16. That's a wonderful video. Yes, these are real people. Yes, what I'm talking about. They are real people, real jobs. And what they face is really an impossible task. Actually, PG&E's concern, I think, is primarily economic here. It's fighting the possibility of communities choosing their energy. You know what I think is interesting. PG&E is behaving like a dinosaur. It has invested in a certain way of bringing energy, which reflects the last century, really. They have a tremendous investment in fossil fuels. Now, in recent years, we've wised up. Fossil fuels are not going to be forever, and they're killing our environment. So there's been an impetus for green energy, but that means new investments. So there's a reason that PG&E is invested, literally invested in maintaining the old way of bringing energy, because they've sunk money into it. So that's why they don't want change. But we have to for the environment, and the video said 30% less. Their companies going under, businesses going under because they can't pay their bills. So it's about keeping our economy up. If we have businesses that function that can pay their bills, they pay taxes to the city, and we can get our roads paid. So it has huge repercussions. Yeah, I think that PG&E is targeting two types of groups. One is public utilities like SMUD, POUs, publicly owned utilities, and these electric service providers that are coming up with alternate energy mixes in their total that are a lot more of alternate energy. So a community could effectively choose if it wants more green power. And I think that you have information about these publicly owned utilities, and their rates are substantially less than... They're quite good. Our next door neighbor, Sacramento, SMUD, you know, we don't have SMUD now because PG&E spent, what is it, 15 million. 15 million, yeah. And in fact, they tried squashing SMUD, which began in 1923. And it wasn't until 1942, as I recall, that SMUD finally got one over PG&E, and YOLO wanted very much to have in. And we were locked out in 2006, thanks to PG&E's big money campaign. So looking at the lowest rates, it's complicated because the rates of energy are based on tears and usage. But looking at the very lowest, PG&E charges about a quarter more than SMUD. Now on the high, 25% more. So if SMUD charges you a dollar, you'll be paying a dollar 25 and multiply that out. Your bills are in the hundreds. So that's a lot. But that's just the beginning. The discrepancy gets worse with higher usage. PG&E penalizes very, very heavily for heavy usage. And this will be in the summer. You haven't... You've seen nothing yet. With the air conditioners, the price goes up to a difference of five and a half times SMUD. In other words, you pay five times more. If you paid one dollar with SMUD, you pay five dollars with PG&E. Five and a half dollars, 5.5, y'all. So there is a huge difference. And it may, as I said, make the difference between a family making it or business making it. Yes, yes. Apparently the powers that be at PG&E have had this in a plan for a long time. And there was a video, a short video on YouTube of Darby, one of the executives of PG&E. And in it, he specifically talks about diminishing the risk of having communities choose alternatives to PG&E. And so I think we have that on video as well. The idea was to diminish, you know, rather than year after year different communities coming in at this or that and putting this up for vote. We thought that this was a way that we could sort of diminish that level, unless there was a very strong, you know, mandate from voters that this is what they wanted to do. So it was really a decision about could we greatly diminish this kind of activity. There's going to be some flap. It'll take place between now and June. And then presumably, you know, we'll mend any broken fences after that. So we're, we're fences to be vended. We're, you know, I call, yeah, they'll mend the fence, but I call that a smoking gun. Yeah, I mean, there's a reason. So they are spending, they spent on smud to defeat smud. And the reason they defeated smud is because I believe one of the one of the letters to the editor a few days ago said that they defeated smud by saying that as a big lie that the property to be annexed by smud would cost 500 million. And in fact, two independent studies said that it was much less 100 million. And this convinced Sacramento to vote it down, although Davis voted 62 to 38 to go with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. It was effectively, they used their 15 million to get that to stop. So now they're spending the 35 million trying to get it effectively if they pass 16 that will amend the Constitution of California to make it that two thirds of any community is necessary to change the power. It's cheaper for them. It's more expensive for us. It's more, much more expensive in the long run. How much have we paid already since 2006 in PG&E bills that are 25 to five and a half times more than they would have been paying. And they're going up faster, I believe, than the public utilities. And I've seen figures that some of the public utilities, I believe in Santa Clara County, are 40% less. That's a publicly owned utility. But one another issue I think that's really important to see where we really have to get the turnout against Proposition 16 out. They have specifically chosen June 8th because who knows there's an election. There's one in November, but there's not a lot of big contests, at least among the Democrats. There are Republican races, the governor's race, that will bring out the Republican. So that brings out the conservatives. You've got a low-tonut. You've got a conservative turnout. Conservatives don't like big government. So we've got to get people to realize that they do have a choice and it's going to go away not just for a year, but for the Constitution. So it's really, it's a devious perversion of our electoral process. It really is despicable. Yes, yes. And they've used this initiative process, which is ordinarily a system where public citizens, if they have something that wants to get to a vote, they get the required signatures whereas PG&E has used it for their corporate gain. They've paid people to get the signatures to get it on the ballot. So it completely circumvents the popular process for which initiatives have come up. It's getting to be that if you've got enough millions of dollars, you can run the country. That's right, against our will. I want to talk about these groups that are forming or people, this community choice aggregation and what that means. Basically, as I understand it, it's a community using their buying power of electricity to choose to buy a different kind of electricity, either publicly owned or usually electricity that's green energy generated in another way. And we have a couple of videos that explain this in a little more detail. Oakland recently was considering community choice aggregation, also called CCA. And it basically means the community's right to choose. And we have a video on Oakland and a meeting that they had recently in Oakland about this. Tonight we're in Oakland at a meeting for community choice aggregation, which means local communities choosing where they get their own power versus the way it is now for many communities where they get their energy from investor owned businesses where the communities have no say where their power comes from. And tonight we're going to talk to some of the people who are involved in trying to get its legislation passed in the Oakland government here. What we have in Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville right now is a private utility, a Pacific Gas and Electric, a PG&E. And so they own the power plants and the lines and they do the building and all that sort of thing. What community choice aggregation or community choice energy is about is it's a hybrid between those two models. Local government, whether it's a city government, couple city governments in this case or county government gets to decide what's in the energy mix. They could decide where the energy comes from, which is key for addressing climate change because they can say we want more renewable energy. San Francisco is actually moving ahead and they filed a plan to have 51% renewable energy by 2017, which is much faster than PG&E is moving right now. The first community choice aggregation was in Massachusetts on Cape Cod, still exists, was formed 10 years ago, serves about 180,000 customers. The investor-owned utilities serve the investors who earn a rate of return on the infrastructure that's owned by the power companies. The CCA is a non-profit entity basically and so it cuts out the whole profit cost and allows renewable energy to become affordable today in California. We see community choices positioned in a way that it doesn't have to challenge the profit center of the utility currently serving the customers and that's because they would continue to own the wires, they continued to own the power plants that they're now making profits off of. Yeah, I think that explains about community choice aggregation and the history. It's not been around for that long. Very proud since I used to live on Cape Cod that Cape Cod was one of the first ones. It's kind of a little island in a way. But we have another video I think that I think people wonder, well, what's it going to look like for me at a local level if we go with a community choice aggregation? So the next video is from San Francisco, Clean Power. Good afternoon, folks. I think like many of you, I got this brochure over the weekend from PG&E and it says, what is community choice aggregation? So CCA allows cities to replace the local private electric company as the provider of electric power with a government-run program. It makes you think that if your power goes out, you're going to call for a uni bus or something. That's not what we're talking about here at all. CCA is not about taking over PG&E. If you have a power problem in your house, PG&E will still come out and they will still take care of it. They will still own the transmission system and the distribution system. When you get a bill, it will come from PG&E. You will still pay it to PG&E. What CCA is about is Clean Power SF is going to buy a cleaner, more renewable mix of power and deliver that to PG&E so PG&E can deliver to the homes and businesses in San Francisco. The initial idea is that we're going to buy that power. The long-term idea is that we're going to generate some of that power in San Francisco. It's the right thing to do. Yeah, I think that makes it really clear that it doesn't may not look that radical a change from the local person as to where they're getting their bills, but they're able to exercise some power in choosing where their energy is going to come from. Look how far that'll take you. Marin County is, I think their program is amazing. It started a week or two ago only. They are offering two plans and they call it light green and dark green. The light green will increase the percentage of green energy to 25%. Now mind you PG&E only gets 13% energy from renewable sources and this is probably because they're locked into fossil fuels so they don't have the maneuverability. So the light green gives you 25% and the costs will be at PG&E rates or less. Now you can opt for dark green which is 100% renewable and there are people in YOLO who would probably like that as well and that has a premium of $10 a month plus one cent per kilowatt hour. So it's a slightly increased cost but it doesn't seem phenomenal. So there's a great deal of options. It looks exciting. The future of electrical sources. I don't want to be locked out of this. It looks like a candy store. I feel like I'd be a little child looking in the window and I can't get in. And if you still want PG&E there is the option to stay with PG&E. So you have a choice. You're not locked into anything but if Prop 16 passes you are locked into PG&E. Yes right. We are locked into PG&E and I want to mention something about Marin because as you're right that came online May 7th very recently and just before like at 10 o'clock on May 6th they made a phenomenal number of calls to customers. Apparently most of the if you had trouble with your service or something you would call and they would say oh well let me tell you about Proposition 16. They called people they offered them refrigerators. They told them that their power would get cut you know or other incentives if they would opt for PG&E. They called them up and said you know your power is going to be shut off unless you go with PG&E. And the California Public Utilities Commission which is on one of the sites that I will I showed at the beginning and will show at the end the actual hearing of the Public Utilities Commission that has person after person who in the three minutes they were allowed tells their little story about what happened to them the night of May 6th or around that time. So the Public Utilities Commission has censured PG&E and told them to desist their tactics immediately. California regulators this week bluntly warmed Pacific Gas and Electric that some of their actions to undermine Marin County's new public power program break state rules and must end immediately. So they were really really pulling every trick in the book and they can do that with their corporate profits. In fact I heard that they were using energy efficiency money to stop Marin from going with their community choice aggregation. Breaking laws. Yes. Breaking laws. Not beyond them. You and I try breaking a law see what happens. And then we have and maybe this is the last topic before we'll wrap up smart meters. Smart meters. Which so many of us now have and this is this great you don't if the dog is out in the yard you don't have to worry that the meter reader isn't going to be there or whatever. Well that's perhaps what it seems like. But some of the real reasons are that it costs a lot of money when you have another person on your payroll. So smart meters eliminate personnel positions and also it allows them a lot of control when we get into the summer we get into those very high usage times with the air conditionings on they are able to cut off power at peak times plus charge premium rates as you pointed out they have information on in their smart meters booklet. So you may find yourself completely without power due to smart meters. And then the third issue is that there are reports I believe from Bakersfield that the rates their power rates have gone up significantly. Dan Berman in Sunday May 16th enterprise quotes. Worse yet PG&E maybe is incompetent as it's greedy. Complaints about PG&E's 2.2 million smart meter program started rolling in last summer from Bakersfield and points north. A typical gripe my bill was around $170 all summer long the smart meter was installed in my first bill shut up to $290. I haven't changed my power usage the new meter is a scam. So if you have the same problem PG&E customer service is a joke. So they may not even function properly. After initial denial PG&E says yes there's storage problems with their data the software there's software problems there are hardware problems. And strangely the investigation of these meters will not complete till after June 8th election. Funny thing about it. So yeah it's peculiar timing you know I say just tell us the total kilowatts build before and after the meters for any community and let's see if they're the same it should be somewhere in the vicinity. You know could I say a word about the program smart meters program? Sure because they have the option of opting into a particular smart meter program just maybe briefly. Well it's it sounded very good to me. They sent out this booklet. I received this glossy multicolor booklet 10 pages inside. You want to learn about the program you've got to squeeze down to just this very small portion on almost the last page and what they say is if you sign up for this you will pay a premium during peak hours in the summer from 2 until 7 p.m. on no more than 15 days of the month that's 15 days of the month you will pay premium prices but in exchange you get reduced rates the rest of the month. Okay so what are the rates I mean that's the bargain two for one well let's see two of what and what is the one of that. Nowhere in this booklet nowhere on their website could I find data it was greener Fresno that described this and they said well look the rate is preposterous it's a dollar oh seven per kilowatt hour during the peak hours and they can run this 15 days of the year during between 2 and 7 p.m. the highest rate before the smart plan was 44 cents so it's more than twice that okay so what's the reduction it better be darn good no the reduction even doesn't even go down to the lowest tier it stays at a high tier and the higher the tier the greater so wait till summer if you sign up for smart plan I don't want to even see your bill it will be asked this is a rate increase disguised as a plan to help you save money yeah amazing yeah it's it's amazing well I want to close our discussion here with another video and then we'll come back briefly to close off this is a video which is a really nice wrap that summarizes a lot of the issues that are important in this process and it's a very creative way to educate yourself on the issues as I walk on home and get my mail once again I feel my face go pale damn PG and e deception looking so clean with another weekly flyer for prop 16 I really hate the trip but they got me so hot I really want this corporation to stop with the lies about their real motivation maintaining its energy domination PG I'll see your money and your power the power and the money minute after minute every kilowatt hour I'm an educated full sustainability on my mind got my hand on my heart and a gleam in my eye your front group a common sense coalition it's a sneaky ass way that you go fishing for control of our energy market I say PG and E why don't you just park it we homies out here know your campaign is a lie if we don't shape up we all gonna die from your nukes and toxic fossil fuel power plants the best you can do is to say that we can't have community run energy what is it worth you raps are willing to sell off the whole damn or clean up your ass and we say no prop 16 stop messing with the clean energy machine PG and E rats cold as ice but we want it's a green energy paradise PG and E we say no prop 16 stop messing with the clean energy machine PG and E we say no on prop 16 stop messing with the clean energy machine PG and E you're as cold as ice what we want is a clean energy paradise the most enjoyable rap song yes I love it yeah and what what uh our viewers out there can do is to go to some of the websites that we've shown you about where these videos are available and use your social networking to share these videos and send them to friends in fact I believe the first site there's a little you can click on a page will tell you exactly how to embed each of these videos their videos in the in a message and I think both of them may do that too and send it to your friends post it on Facebook many different ways but get the word out and get it to our communities that they're only sources television and not a lot of local excess the way we have in uh Davis so when you don't have 35 million you have to work harder you have to work harder so work harder people's campaign to combat uh PG and E and preserve community choice so keep democracy keep democracy for people keep our yes keep democracy for people keep democracy alive so we want to uh suggest that all of you tell your neighbors and vote uh no on prop 16 on June 18th June 8th and I want to thank you very much for joining us and uh thank you Mary for my pleasure providing a lot of the uh nice details that you've provided it's good to be here yes thank you