To the editor: After all Southern California Edison desires a rate hike to pay for the damage its gear was discovered to have triggered in separate wildfires in 2017 and 2018. There’s no cause that the corporate’s shareholders ought to pay if it may be pinned on ratepayers.
Pacific Fuel & Electrical received away with the identical factor after a fireplace attributable to its gear burned down a lot of the city of Paradise, Calif., in 2018.
These utility corporations needs to be public, identical to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, or SMUD, which took many years to interrupt away from PG&E’s sphere. The SMUD solutions to ratepayers quite than shareholders. Charges are decrease, and the utility has a superb document of placing in renewables resembling wind.
California made a pact with the satan when it took a budget approach out and let personal utilities be fashioned.
Diane Lynch, Tiburon, Calif.
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To the editor: Edison mustn’t get approval to extend charges to its clients for one thing that was the corporate’s fault.
As a substitute of getting its clients to choose up the tab, Edison ought to cease paying dividends to stockholders till the cash for gear upgrades is recouped. Perhaps then there can be extra accountability for damages.
Eric Garnier, Ventura
