Too Much Cover

By Dianne Jacob

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Jacob hosted Café San Diego on Friday.

Right now, I'm reading testimony from Michael Shames at the Utility Consumers Action Network (UCAN) on SDG&E's Sunrise Powerlink.

Pretty interesting stuff.

Shames alleges that when SDG&E was studying ways to ensure passage of its highly controversial Sunrise Powerlink, it paid lots of money to a consulting firm to conduct a "focus group" to determine how best to gain approval for the giant line.

Pricey focus groups of local "opinion leaders" are certainly not new or unusual. However, some of the discussion that took place during the two-hour session reveals a lot about how these "opinion leaders" view political decision making.

Check out Page 46.

Focus group participants were said to have suggested that the utility should promote the benefits of the line so that, "elected officials have cover to support a controversial endeavor."

Cover?

Now "cover" is one of those loaded words that, to me, just sound suspicious. Should a company (or its consultant) be thinking in terms of "cover" if their project is sure to draw conspiracy allegations?

Are San Diego’s elected officials so skittish about unpopular decisions that others need to create a climate of "cover"?

What about science? What about technical data? What about analysis? What about costs?

What about the paid staffers of elected officials who are supposed to be ferreting out good public policy based on a proposal’s merit?

What about -- how do I say this delicately -- testicular fortitude?

Instead, at least one group of influential stakeholders thinks the region’s elected officials need "cover" to get stuff done.

Even if you don’t believe there are less costly, less destructive alternatives to SDG&E’s massive line, you just have to hope that SDG&E is as interested in the facts as it is in "cover."

Read more of Jacob's posts at Café San Diego. Or send a letter to the editor.

8 Comments so far on this story...

How about having the testicular fortitude to answer some of the questions that have been asked of you?Or didn't your staffer brief you on that part?

Posted by JF | reply to this comment
June 22, 2007 5:13 am
I often searched for the proper phrase for "testicular fortitude." Finally leared heard the terms, "professional courage." Much more PC and "professional"

Posted by Anonymous | reply to this comment
June 22, 2007 5:16 am
Yes, it is nice when the person blogging answers the posted questions rather then changing subjects to avoid them. As you cited above, "Are San Diego’s elected officials so skittish about unpopular decisions that others need to create a climate of "cover"?" Yes, it would seem if they won't answer posted questions.

Posted by Yes, answer the questions Clai | reply to this comment
June 22, 2007 5:44 am
I am shocked -- SHOCKED!! -- to learn politicians feel the need to put a gloss on what they support. Surely they don't think the public is going to be hard on them for making a tough-but-necessary decision? In my experience, no one utters a word when an elected makes a tough call. They just accept it graciously, because it had to get done. That's San Diego. "Hey, those library hour and swim program cuts are necessary because the city's broke. Let's try to be understanding and pull together." Yeah, I remember hearing that sentiment a lot.

Posted by Shocked | reply to this comment
June 22, 2007 6:03 am
My question is WHO is promting the Utility to help cover the elected officials? WHO is behind the curtain pulling the strings of the puppet ulility AND officials??

Posted by frances | reply to this comment
June 22, 2007 1:39 pm
Why couldn't we guess that SDG&E would have to "urge" elected officials in a P?R campaign for Sunrise Powerlink ? There are already ower stations going on line in small cities as well as the huge desire for AFFORDABLE solar power. SDG&E maybe behind the price gouging that goes on today in that sector. How many have attempted to have solar power installed, only to be told it is unaffordable - the payback will be 20 years ! And solar power is a renewable source of energy. Instead, the utility would rather place "Demand Meters" on services that do not use much power per month, but the start-up surge is large, but instantaneous. No power used, except for the milleseconds, and the customers bill is then calculated as if that demand were continuous usage, and their utilit bill becomes gigantic - corporate stealing !

Posted by Solar instead of Snrise ? | reply to this comment
June 22, 2007 10:04 pm
Get off Dianne's case......she can answer any question she wants to.

Posted by Billy Bob Henry | reply to this comment
June 23, 2007 9:30 am
Amazing, isn't it? When you flip the little switch, lights go on. How about the next time you have an outage, you call a Liberal?

Posted by Bluzy | reply to this comment
June 24, 2007 4:33 am

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