S.J., Oakland to get money for costs from power shutoffs.
Cities can use the money to buy generators to help power essential services
Cities with residents and businesses still reeling from PG&E’s decision to repeatedly shut off power for customers across California in October are set to see some relief.
San Jose, Oakland and other major cities each will get $500,000 to help cover the costs of the power shutoffs that left millions of residents in the dark last month.
The money is part of a $75 million state fund mayors and other city officials can use to pay for generators or other backup energy supplies to keep crucial services like fire stations and hospitals up and running even when power is off.
PG&E has said it needs to cut power during hot, windy weather to prevent wildfires from sparking. The utility has been blamed for causing a series of wildfires across the state in recent years. Yet it may not have been enough. Officials are investigating whether the powerful Kincade fire that threatened to level the towns of Healdsburg and Windsor in recent days may have been sparked by the company’s faulty equipment.
On Friday, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo thanked the state, specifically state Sen. Jim Beall, who joined him for a news conference at City Hall, for allocating the funding to local governments.
“Resiliency is the key word for every local community,” Liccardo said.
But both men blasted the utility company for failing to do enough to prevent the shutoffs in the first place.
“We’re disappointed in the management and operation of PG&E,” Beall said. “We’re finally at the end of our rope, and we want something done about it.”
The company has said it could take a decade before it can make enough improvements to its infrastructure that it doesn’t need to rely on shutdowns to preemptively prevent fires. Beall said that was not acceptable.
“No, we want them to do it in three years,” the senator said. “I think they have to focus on dealing with their equipment and maintenance on their equipment immediately.”
In San Jose, Liccardo said he wants to use some of the funding to build up microgrids that could help power the city during future power outages.
“We are going all-in,” the mayor said.
Setting up such a system would take significant time and more than half a million dollars. The first shut-off alone cost San Jose about that much, Liccardo said. And the money and supplies restaurants and businesses that had to shutter during the shutdowns lost adds up to even more.
“The bill is going to be much larger to get to the resilience we all want,” Liccardo said.
Liccardo said he also wants to explore reorganizing PG&E into a customer-owned utility, like a credit union, blasting the company for giving executives millions of dollars in bonuses even as it filed for bankruptcy and saddled residents with costly bills for unreliable service.
But, as Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement announcing the funds, the money is a first step. Each county in the state will get at least $150,000. In addition to San Jose and Oakland, Los Angeles and San Diego also each will get $500,000.
“PG&E failed to maintain its infrastructure and Californians are facing hardship as a result,” Newsom said. “For decades, they have placed greed before public safety. We must do everything we can to support Californians, especially those most vulnerable to these events. These funds will help local governments address these events and assist their most vulnerable residents.”
Liccardo said he would be “pushing for more” in the next budget cycle. And Beall said the state Senate has put together a task force set to meet in mid-November to explore how to address the issue moving forward. In the coming year, he said, the state will need to do everything from thinning forests to fighting climate change and pollution to fighting wildfires and the effects they have on residents.
“We’re going to begin to discuss where we can go from here,” Beall said, adding that the aim is to piece together “a strong utility system in California.”
In a new blog post Friday, Newsom said the state deserves worldclass utilities that are safe, affordable and environmentally friendly. Next week, the governor will gather PG&E executives, shareholders, wildfire victims and others in Sacramento to “accelerate a consensual resolution to the bankruptcy cases that creates a new entity — one that better reflects California values and will advance massive safety transformations beginning before next fire season.”
If that doesn’t happen, Newsom warned, “The state will not hesitate to step in and restructure the utility.”