Dispute delays plan for brighter streets
Watchdog balks at PG&E’s costs for Tenderloin
A long-delayed plan to illuminate some of the Tenderloin’s darkest blocks with bright new streetlights is on hold once again, the victim of a dispute between Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.
The utilities commission, which owns the streetlights in the 25-block Tenderloin project area, is accusing PG&E of quadrupling the connection fees it charges to tap into its power distribution grid.
The SFPUC says the utility wants to charge $107,000 for the work, a “fourfold increase in the cost for this type of connection,” according to letters from the commission to PG&E. The commission says it has repeatedly asked PG&E for an explanation of the increased costs but hasn’t gotten an answer.
“We just see that as being good stewards of ratepayers’ dollars,” said Barbara Hale, the utilities commission’s assistant general manager for power. “We need to know what we are spending it on. We need to know that it is a reasonable cost. They are not giving us that information. We can’t agree to costs we don’t un-
derstand.”
In a statement, PG&E spokeswoman Andrea Menniti said the new service fees were reached “after revisiting an expired and outdated agreement that used negotiated, fixed costs.” The higher charges “reflect current costs and the number of crews needed to safely perform the project.”
The $4.2 million streetlight improvement project, which would bring 100 new streetlights to the Tenderloin, is the culmination of a decadelong push to improve pedestrian safety in a neighborhood with a long history of open-air drug dealing, assaults and other illegal activity.
The project would replace traditional cobra head streetlights with twin teardrop poles, similar to the ones near City Hall. The 22-foot-high poles are to be installed on the north and south sides of Jones, Leavenworth, Hyde and Larkin streets between McAllister and O’Farrell, and on Eddy Street between Mason and Larkin.
The utilities commission started installation work last spring, but it was halted on July 28, when it became clear that PG&E was not going to provide work crews to connect the streetlights to the power grid.
On Tuesday the utilities commission filed a protest with Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, known as FERC, which is responsible for ensuring fair and open access to the distribution systems of monopoly utilities such as PG&E. The commission is asking FERC to order PG&E to provide a complete accounting of the higher charges. It also wants FERC to require PG&E to sign an “unexecuted” work performance agreement, which would allow the work to proceed in the Tenderloin without a signed contract.
PG&E says it is not going resume the work until the SFPUC signs the work performance agreement, which would include agreeing to the new connection rates.
“It’s incredibly disappointing,” said Supervisor Jane Kim, whose district includes the Tenderloin. “This is a project the community has been fighting for for almost a decade. It’s important that it move forward.”
Better street lighting and safer pedestrian conditions were “community asks” in the negotiations that led to the approval for a new California Pacific Medical Center on Van Ness Avenue, Kim said. About $2.5 million for the lighting project comes from grants from the medical center, while the rest comes from the city.
“The community was very excited when the financing came through and the PUC began work,” Kim said. “To have it delayed now over something that feels petty is unfortunate.”
The utilities commission and PG&E share responsibility and ownership of the city’s 25,500 streetlights, with the SFPUC overseeing 60 percent and the remaining 40 percent mainly owned and operated by PG&E.
But the public agency and the investor-owned electric utility are often at odds. In the past year the SFPUC has accused PG&E of dragging its feet in bringing power to a several public places, including a homeless Navigation Center in the Mission, the Town Square in Noe Valley and the Randall Museum, the children’s natural history museum in Corona Heights.
In the case of the Tenderloin, PG&E said the company is “doing everything within the regulatory parameters to move the project forward.”
“PG&E has spent several months collaborating with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and city leaders to ensure this project is moving forward safely and as quickly as possible,” Menniti said.
Kevin Stull, who lives at the Vincent Hotel on Turk Street and works with children in the Tenderloin, said the new lighting would make him feel a lot more comfortable walking at night.
“There is very little lighting from streetlights or businesses at night here,” Stull said. “It’s makes it unwelcoming to walk down the street. A lot of people in the Tenderloin feel the same way. When it’s darker, it’s harder for police to see what kind of activity is going on. We need better lighting to help chase away all the riffraff around here.”
The project is park of a larger effort to install 12,500 new streetlights around the city, replacing outdated street lamp heads with brighter, more energy-efficient lightemitting diode fixtures. The new LED streetlights would consume on average 50 percent less energy, reducing electricity costs for the city.
SFPUC spokesman Charles Sheehan said the agency is eager to resume work.
“What we are saying is let that run its course but tell PG&E to start the work,” Sheehan said. “Delays will cost us money and cost us goodwill in the community.”