As forecasted high winds pick up, PG&E to cut power to thousands of San Mateo and Santa Clara county customers

Posted by Brian
a resident of Menlo Park: The Willows
on Oct 26, 2020 at 9:27 am
Brian is a registered user.

It is a shame that the PUC and our elected officials have let PG&E get away with not maintaining their equipment and doing the basic preventative maintenance that they should have been doing, all the while giving their executives huge bonuses. It is because of that lack of maintenance that they are shutting off power to tens of thousands of people not to mention the people who have died in San Bruno, Paradise and other places in California do to faulty PG&E equipment. It is also a shame that our own fire chief chose to participate in PG&E's PR campaign in the aftermath of these deaths.

Posted by Bob Pierce
a resident of Portola Valley: Brookside Park
on Oct 26, 2020 at 12:27 pm
Bob Pierce is a registered user.

PGE is the only option (save for solar battery-powered wall units) for most residents. They are a monopoly that is supposedly regulated by the PUC. That hasn't happened. It is time to take it into public ownership, like the highway system, for the protection of our citizenry. Without the desire and necessity of paying dividends to stock holders, CalPGE would have sufficient revenue to underground its power lines, which they claim now costs 3X the cost of using overhead power lines. The one-time cost would be high, but the lack of fires, death, destruction, etc. would be many times the cost of taking down the overhead power lines.