Heard this morning on KGO Radio, 810 San Francisco, that PG&E plans to lay off 3,500 employees. PG&E went to the CPUC and requested a rate hike of $445 million for electric, and $377 million for gas = $822 million. A judge ruled that PG&E would receive no electric revenue increase and told them to deduct an additional $43 million dollars. For the gas, the judge ruled that PG&E would receive only $63 million. PG&E finds this ruling totally unacceptable. Half of the layoffs will be shared by management and service employees. With the service employee layoffs, this would hamper safety and reliability. It is proposed that 1/3 of the layoffs would be in the tree trimming sector putting thousands of households at risk for losing power. PG&E was sued recently for being responsible for a fire in the Grass Valley area that destroyed homes and property. So not only do we here in Northern California have to worry about PG&E keeping the power on for Y2K, but the safe and reliable service that will not be there. Who are you going to call when the lights and gas go out?

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), November 09, 1999

Answers

Oh joy!

(Not)

*Big Sigh*

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), November 09, 1999.

I wonder what cities are going to be on the power grid, especially the cities, and towns that have the highest number of P.G. & E. top brass and hands on workers living in those cities/towns. I don't think the idea of their families freezing their butts off will last very long, they'll have to decide to pull the plug on the lowest number of customers living in the sticks. On this subject, you may want to venture over to Gary North's web site posted today: Power Grid Comment: If This Is True, You Will Wish You Had Prepared More.

-- Judy (Dodgeball@gas.com), November 09, 1999.

I COUNT on Silicon Valley CEO's to really rattle PG&E's cage.

That said... camping anyone?

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), November 09, 1999.