Power San Diego, the initiative that wants to oust San Diego Gas & Electric by creating a municipal electric utility within the city limits of San Diego, has fallen short of its goal of collecting 80,000 verified signatures to put the proposition on the ballot this fall.
But the group turned in about 31,000 signatures to the County Registrar of Voters on Tuesday, which it says would be enough to put the question before the San Diego City Council instead.
“Unfortunately this campaign has not collected the 80,000 signatures needed to qualify for the ballot but this does not mean that we’ve lost — far from it,” said Emma Rodriguez, campaign coordinator for the SanDiego350 environmental organization and one of the groups ing the initiative.
Power San Diego cited a provision in the San Diego City Charter that the nine of the City Council have the power to place the question of creating a municipal utility up for a popular vote if the city clerk verifies at least 24,000 signatures are valid.
About 30 Power San Diego representatives dropped off 15 boxes of petitions at the registrar’s office Tuesday afternoon. It’s expected to take several weeks to determine if the number of verified signatures is sufficient.
“I’m fairly confident” that at least 24,000 valid signatures have been collected, said Bill Powers, chair of the Power San Diego ballot measure. “I think the validation effort has been top-notch, first class.”
As for the failure to collect 80,000 signatures, Powers blamed his group’s lack of resources. “Let me be clear — money,” he said. “In order to hire coordinators and consultants, it takes money. It also takes volunteers and we did it primarily with volunteers.”
Power San Diego has already gone to City Hall twice, seeking an endorsement of its initiative, but was turned down each time.
In September 2023, all four of the City Council’s Environment Committee listened to a presentation by Powers but declined to endorse his proposal to put it before voters. “We must get much more detailed data in of costs, expenses, liability (and) revenue projections,” said Councilmember Jennifer Campbell, adding that “it is way too premature” to go on the 2024 ballot.
Powers returned last month, appearing before the Rules Committee, but dismissed the Power San Diego resolution without taking a vote.
“I have no love for corporate monopolies reaching into the pockets of everyday working people,” said Council President Sean Elo-Rivera, “but this is a very complex and important issue, and I don’t think this is baked enough to go to the voters.”
What makes backers of the initiative think the council will be any more receptive now?
“There is a lot of public interest in switching out SDG&E,” Powers said. “This is the grassroots saying (to the) city political infrastructure, this is a big deal. A lot of people are very interested in seeing a change.”
Under the Power San Diego proposal, the municipal utility would handle the electricity distribution responsibilities for customers within the city limits of San Diego only — not in other municipalities in the county.
Backers say making the change will result in San Diego customers seeing about a 20 percent reduction in their electricity bills, citing how municipal utilities such as the Sacramento Municipal Utility District and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power offer customers lower rates than California’s investor-owned utilities — SDG&E, Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison.
Power San Diego has estimated it would cost $3.5 billion to get a municipal power company up and running.
But SDG&E in March released an assessment from an energy consulting firm that predicts the costs will come to much more than that — from $11.31 billion to $13.23 billion — and contends when the costs of financing a municipal utility from scratch are factored in, the total grows even higher.
“It’s clear that this (signature drive) has come short of its stated goals,” said Matt Awbrey, spokesman for Responsible Energy San Diego, a political action committee formed by groups opposed to the initiative, including SDG&E. “This is a bad idea today, this was a bad idea a month ago when the City Council committee declined to put this on the ballot themselves, and it’ll be a bad idea as the registrar counts these signatures.”
“We are in a budget crisis and we have so many other priorities to consider,” said Ellen Nash, chair of the San Diego Chapter of the Black American Political Association of California, one of the of Responsible Energy San Diego.
According to the city’s campaign finance disclosure portal, Responsible Energy San Diego has received at least $398,000 in contributions from SDG&E this year alone.
The prospect of creating a municipal utility has also drawn vocal opposition from the labor union that represents roughly 1,500 SDG&E employees.
“This whole thing gambles with public safety and with our public union jobs,” said Monica Valadez, dispatcher and shop steward at IBEW Local 465. “It gambles with all of that with no plan and they never once consulted the actual worker who does this type of work.”
Power San Diego representatives promise union jobs would be protected, should a switch be made. They also dispute the estimate that creating a municipal utility would cost $11 billion and $13 billion, saying the change could be funded by ing a bond to establish a standalone enterprise fund, with costs amortized over 30 years.
Power San Diego officials say the residential customer portion of the $3.5 billion would work out to less than $15 per month, arguing that residential customers already pay that much or more under the current system and predict there would be no incremental cost exposure to city ratepayers.
“Every public electric utility in the state has lower rates than SDG&E,” Powers said. “Every public electric utility in this state has more stable rates. Every public electric utility has local control. They’re not under the Public Utilities Commission.”
The debate over whether to create a municipal utility comes as utility bills keep rising. SDG&E’s rates have consistently been the highest in the state — and are often the most expensive in the U.S., according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Officials at SDG&E have attributed the increases to a number of factors, including:
- Spending $5 billion in ratepayer funds since the 2007 Witch Creek, Guejito and Rice wildfires destroyed more than 1,300 homes, killed two people, and injured 40 firefighters. SDG&E is considered the pacesetter when it comes to state-of-the-art wildfire prevention efforts, and
- Programs to help California meet its clean energy goal, such as deriving 100 percent of the state’s electricity from carbon-free sources of power by 2045.
SDG&E has also come under fire for the money it makes.
The utility’s parent company — San Diego-based Sempra — released its 2023 earnings earlier this year. According to filings submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, SDG&E made $936 million last year. That’s $21 million higher than the utility’s previous all-time high set in 2022.
