East of the Line - 50 PERCENT OF MY SDG&E BILL IS SUPPOSED TO GO FOR INFRASTRUCTURE MAINTENANCE -- SO WHAT AM I GETTING FOR MY MONEY?

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By Billie Jo Jannen

Once upon a time, our power in many parts east of the line, was provided by
a cooperative formed, as many were in the wake of the New Deal, using both
local resources and a loan from the Rural Electrification Administration.

Between 1935 and the early 1970s, Mountain Empire Rural Electric Cooperative
built over 1,000 miles of power lines to serve remote places east of populated
areas then served by the growing for-profit company, San Diego Gas and Electric.

Then, according to a history by Golden State Power Cooperative (www.gspower.org): “Mountain
Empire thrived for a couple of decades until it became the victim of a hostile
takeover by SDG&E in the early 1970s. When co-op members voted not to sell
their co-op to the big power company at two different annual meetings, representatives
of SDG&E used a different tactic to take it over. By going door-to-door
and showing individual co-op member-owners how much cash they would receive
if the co-op were sold, they were eventually successful in enticing enough
co-op members to sign on the dotted line.”

Prior to the takeover, Mountain Empire enjoyed competitive rates, excellent
service and local control, GSPC continues, but adds, “During the late
1990s, they paid some of the highest electricity rates in history.”

Little seems to have changed since then, except that the maintenance and improvement
of those many miles of power lines has been a pretty low priority for SDG$E – so
low, in fact, that its rural infrastructure has become a fire threat to the
region.

SDG$E’s solution, as everyone who listens to the news knows, is to punish
those of us who live out here by turning off the power when the Santa Anas
come to call. Never mind that the ability to power our (electric) well pumps,
our (electric) livestock fences, and our resources for keeping up with news
in a crisis (electric televisions, electric radios, electric computers) will
be instantly taken from us.

This is the solution of a company, now the child of global energy giant Sempra
Energy (net profit of over $1 billion in 2007, per www.sempra.com),
that feels qualified to force us to play host to Sunrise Powerlink – a
proposed line of high power transmission lines to carry power from Mexico to … other
people. And mind you, we will, like every other ratepayer, be charged extra
on our bills to cover construction of this giant project while SDG$E and Sempra
rake in the profits for generating cheap power in a country that doesn’t
regulate pollution to the extent that we do and selling it to greedy markets
all over the West Coast and beyond.

Consider the irony of hundreds of backcountry residents forced to live near
this high power line, which will surely NOT be shut down in a fire, and watch
their own barns and homes placed in greater danger for lack of power to pump
defensive water from their wells.

Consider the irony of a company that has allowed delivery infrastructure to
fall to wrack and ruin, but now wants us to believe it can be trusted to build
and maintain a transmission line that is potentially far more dangerous, due
to the strength of electric voltage it will carry.

We are charged a substantial amount of money each month – over and above
the cost of the electricity we actually use - for transmission and distribution.
On my bill, that charge is about 50 percent of the total I
am billed. The small print on the back of my bill informs me that this money
is used for infrastructure to bring electricity to us and then deliver it to
our homes.

Multiply that $60 to $70 a month by 30,000 or 40,000  customers east
of the line and I’ve just got to ask: What the heck have they been
doing with that money while our rural infrastructure has been rotting away
for lack of attention?

If you’re beginning to get the idea that I think SDG$E is being, at
the very least, remiss in its responsibility to rural customers, then you are
definitely paying attention. It is possible that criminal neglect might be
too strong a term, but not by much.

To SDG$E: you wanted this customer base, and the infrastructure it built,
badly enough to wage a door-to-door propaganda campaign to get it. You now
owe us better than to use us as a cash cow from whom you can casually cut off
the feed when times get tough. Find another solution – like taking care
of the maintenance you’ve deferred, yea these many years.

I’ve made myself a promise in this election and keeping it is related,
in great part, to Sunrise Powerlink. I am focusing – by issues and not
by party – on who has directly benefited us out here east of the line.

Two races make a big impression on me. One is the California Assembly race
between incumbent Joel Anderson and challenger Raymond Lutz. Lutz has been
all over backcountry issues, notably as a strong voice against the (in my opinion
unnecessary) Sunrise Powerlink and a supporter of Potrero residents in their
Blackwater battle. It impresses me when a candidate puts his meeting attendance
and support where his mouth is. You might consider throwing a vote his way.

The other is the Grossmont Healthcare District board of directors, which in
my opinion, needs as clean a sweep as we voters can manage in the next couple
of election cycles. It’s also time for a serious discussion of accountability.

It has never ceased to bother me that the hospital district
that we taxpayers voted to form and fund for the specific purpose of building
and maintaining hospital facilities in the East County decided on its own,
in 1997, that it was going to be a healthcare district instead of a hospital
district. It now leases out our hospital to a private operator and uses our
tax money, which we continue to pay faithfully every year via our property
tax bills, to make grants to any number of private non-profits. This effectively
sends millions of dollars of our money annually into a black hole of non-accountability.

This, while we backcountry residents cannot hope to make it to the nearest
hospital in time to survive a heart attack or stroke without major damage;
our near-term young women must go stay with friends in town so they won’t
deliver their babies on the freeway; and “our” hospital is being
dinged for the proliferation of lethal diseases related to poor sanitation.
As I said, think clean sweep when you’re filling out this part
of your ballot.

You should probably get used to hearing me prattle on about health and emergency
care delivery to residents east of the line. I have a few … um … opinions
about the subject. And Mr. Lutz: If you win our assembly seat, do expect to
hear from me about this.

I mean that in a nice way, of course.

Billie Jo Jannen is a property owner and resident of Campo for 21 years
and has written and edited rural news for 22 years. Her children and grandchildren
also live in Campo. Reach her via email at jannen@inbox.com.


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