On November 15, 2006 County Supervisor Mariko Yamada and Davis City Councilmember Stephen Souza wrote a rather ordinary and standard letter of thanks to the contributors and supporters of Measures H & I. Completely unremarkable unless you are Bob Dunning.
Public power quest is still aliveDunning writes:
Davis voters sent an unmistakable Election Day message about public power — we want it! The twin SMUD annexation Measures H and I passed here by a nearly 62 percent margin despite PG&E's unprecedented $11 million disinformation campaign to defeat us. Unfortunately, their efforts to frighten and confuse Sacramento SMUD ratepayers and West Sacramento and Woodland residents were too great to overcome — this time.
On behalf of Yolo4SMUD, we wish to thank all of our contributors and supporters — including The Davis Enterprise — for advancing the dialogue on the clear benefits of municipal over investor-owned utilities. The quest for local power, which began nine years ago in Davis, is still alive, strong and well. Stay tuned, and thank you.
Mariko Yamada, chair
Stephen Souza, treasurer
let's correct that statement about a "62 percent margin" … there was no such thing … SMUD got 62 percent of the Davis vote … a 62 percent margin would be 81 percent "yes" and 19 percent "no." …Okay, they misspoke or mistyped, they got 62 percent of the vote not a 62 percent margin. Let's haul off and write a column on it... oh yeah, he did. Must have been a slow news day.
You might want to read that last sentence again … Davis folks, you see, were too smart to be frightened or confused … but the lowlifes in those other cities we're forced to share a county with just couldn't put two and two together and were thus at the mercy of the merciless power company …Yes this letter to the editor is a clear example of "our elitism shining through." I won't defend Souza on this score, but anyone who knows Mariko, knows she is anything but an elitist. If anything she's humble to a fault.
Moreover I just don't see any evidence of elitism in this letter. What I see is frustration and anger that PG&E spent $11 million plus on a campaign to distort the issues and their record on the environment. The only difference between Davis and Woodland and Sacramento is that Davis is a bit more liberal and it took more to convince them that PG&E was an environmentally friendly company than a fradulent "No on Measure X" flyer purporting that a vote for PG&E was a vote against Measure X (or something like that).
If Dunning wants to be outraged, how about being outraged at PG&E for dumping $11 million into a campaign to keep their services in Yolo County and using every trick in the book to try to confuse the issue.
And if we are to be outraged, perhaps we shoud be upset that Dunning is filling our newspaper space with such banalities. Oh yeah I forgot, he's funny. Can anyone explain to me the humor in this column, because the only one I'm laughing at is Dunning himself for writing about this.
---Doug Paul Davis reporting
