San Francisco fines homeowner 50K for Tree Trimming confusion

00:00:00
Speaker 1: And we continue with two h five in the afternoon on the John Phillips Show, Mister Randy Weggs in Culver City.

00:00:06
Speaker 2: John, we have hit a milestone some thought we'd never see when it comes to the gas crisis affecting the country in specifically California. That gas station in Gorda, if you want a gallon of premium gas, it'll cost you nine ninety nine.

00:00:27
Speaker 1: I still can't believe we named a town fat woman. There's got to be an individual, a specific person, who that town is named after.

00:00:40
Speaker 2: Who the Gorda is that's named after by Gorda. I wonder if AI can tell us who she is? Well, why don't you type that one into grock This gas station. I remember we five years ago we're talking about how outrageous it was that the guests in Gorda was seven dollars a gallon, and here we are it is now nine ninety nine. And the funny thing is it can't go any higher than that because there's no more numbers on the meter.

00:01:14
Speaker 1: Okay, So here's what Grok says. Gorda, California, a small hamlet in Monterey County along the Big sur Coast, is not named after a specific person. The name Gorda is simply the Spanish word for fat, the feminine form of Gordeaux. It most likely refers to the geography of the area, the rolling, rounded or fat hills and headlands along the rugged coastline. Some local explanations interpret it as meaning rich or well fed land, referring to the lush vegetation, abundant wildlife, and fertile looking coastal terrain in that part of Big sur.

00:01:54
Speaker 2: Well, it does make sense. Monterey County is beautiful.

00:01:59
Speaker 1: I think it's an inside joke. I think there was an actual fat woman. I think it has nothing to do with the land.

00:02:07
Speaker 2: I think you've got to start bringing historians on the show and start digging deep into this. Who is Gorda named after? This show's mission statement is to find the answer to that question.

00:02:19
Speaker 1: Well, there's a real easy way of finding out. When did Rosie O'Donnell's relatives immigrate to this country? Isn't she a New Yorker? I think so, Well, they had covered wagons.

00:02:42
Speaker 2: I wonder at what point she'll be so irrelevant that you won't make random shots at her.

00:02:48
Speaker 1: Well, she's autozimpic now, so it's kind of hard to do the fat jokes the way we used to she's wasting away. Eight hundred two two two five two two two is telephone number? What eight hundred two to two two five to two two two, So, Randy. Earlier in the program, you referenced a story out of the city and County of San Francisco. But a man who was just doing what he thought needed to be done, in fact, was told to do so by his insurance company, and that is to trim some vegetation in and around his property. And apparently the city said that's a big no no.

00:03:27
Speaker 2: Somebody got fined fifty thousand dollars by San Francisco for trimming the trees they thought were on their property.

00:03:39
Speaker 1: Sounds like that guy had a bad day.

00:03:42
Speaker 2: For mar Here's ABC seven Eyewitness News in the Bay.

00:03:48
Speaker 3: We're talking about a fifty thousand dollars fine for illegally trimming five trees.

00:03:53
Speaker 2: This homeowner ten thousand dollars a trunk. What does it even cost to trim a tree, not fifty thous dollars.

00:04:01
Speaker 3: Trees this homeowner thought were on his property and as you can see, they're right outside his home. But as the city explains, they're not his, and he wasn't authorized to do it, and.

00:04:12
Speaker 4: They kept cutting and cutting.

00:04:14
Speaker 2: Whatever happened to a warning?

00:04:17
Speaker 1: I guess that doesn't exist anymore.

00:04:19
Speaker 2: You know, if you commit crimes, we give you slaps on the wrist, slaps on the wrist, slaps on the wrist, we give you the janis haunting court all day long. That's your final warning. But you accidentally trimmed some trees that you thought you were supposed to trim fifty thousand dollars.

00:04:35
Speaker 1: Fine, and didn't his insurance companies say that those trees post a fire wrist to his property?

00:04:41
Speaker 4: Why? Yes, and they kept cutting and cutting.

00:04:44
Speaker 3: Paul Dennis is trying to ensure his property in San Francisco's Panhandle neighborhood.

00:04:49
Speaker 5: Was an email from the broker saying, in order to qualify for insurance, you need to trim the trees so many feet from the property.

00:04:57
Speaker 2: See it's the insurance company that started all of this.

00:05:01
Speaker 1: That industry is broken in this day.

00:05:05
Speaker 6: Yep.

00:05:06
Speaker 1: I'm very kind of sketch and you've got okay.

00:05:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll just take care of that.

00:05:11
Speaker 3: So Dennis trim down five trees in front of his unit that he says we're touching the building, and in some cases you see that even power lines.

00:05:19
Speaker 4: I wanted to get them out of the power lines.

00:05:21
Speaker 2: Three in front, So this guy is doing the entire neighborhood a service.

00:05:25
Speaker 1: By the way, the city should have paid the bill for that.

00:05:28
Speaker 4: Three in front, and on the other side there's two more.

00:05:31
Speaker 3: His family has owned the home since nineteen eighty eight. Since then, Dennis always thought it was the property owner's responsibility to trim.

00:05:39
Speaker 4: Guess I've never seen the city trim these trees.

00:05:41
Speaker 3: Never well, he learned the hard way.

00:05:43
Speaker 2: That's how they got so long that they're now coming up right against the building and the power lines.

00:05:49
Speaker 1: You can't win for losing here.

00:05:51
Speaker 3: Never well, he learned the hard way.

00:05:53
Speaker 7: Not in his case.

00:05:55
Speaker 3: The trees are not his. Two days before Christmas last year, Dennis got slow with the first of several fines from the San Francisco Department of Public Works for illegal tree pruning.

00:06:10
Speaker 2: There are open air drug dealers in San Francisco every single day, usually from Honduras in the country, illegally walking up and down the Tenderloin and Soma and the mission selling fent and al. The city doesn't do anything about them. But they're going to levy fine after fine after fine for illegal tree trimming.

00:06:38
Speaker 1: Well, go back to a point I made earlier. There is one set of rules for taxpayers and homeowners, and another set of rules for protected classes.

00:06:47
Speaker 3: In total, the city charged him fifty thousand dollars.

00:06:51
Speaker 2: WHOA, I'm like, it's the exact right response.

00:06:55
Speaker 6: WHOA.

00:06:58
Speaker 1: Mine would have had to be bleeped.

00:07:00
Speaker 4: WHOA, I'm like, are you kidding me? It's just brutal.

00:07:03
Speaker 2: You know, public when did the city of San Francisco turn into the world's largest HOA.

00:07:10
Speaker 1: And all the members of the Board of Supervisors or Karens.

00:07:14
Speaker 3: Public Works told seven on your side. As stewards of San Francisco's urban forest, it is our job to hold people accountable when they harm or damage a street tree.

00:07:26
Speaker 2: Mind you, all he did was trim it. They do know it will grow back, correct, They say he trimmed it too far.

00:07:37
Speaker 3: The necessary clearance was achievable without topping. The indiscriminate cutting of main branches back to stubs. Often removing fifty to one hundred percent of a tree's canopy can severely damage trees. In many cases, topping significantly shortens a tree's lifespan and can increase liability when trees later fail.

00:08:00
Speaker 1: Whenever my trees are trimmed, I always tell them to basically shave it because I don't want to have to have them trimmed all the time. And it's warm here so they grow fast.

00:08:13
Speaker 2: Well, in San Francisco it's always cold.

00:08:17
Speaker 3: Adding an initial urban forestry inspector determined the trees had been damaged to the point that removal would be necessary.

00:08:24
Speaker 2: Well, at what point was DPW ever going to trim the trees themselves. He's in this situation because he was uninsurable unless he did something about it.

00:08:34
Speaker 1: And you know what their response would be. We were right on top of that it was supposed to happen the next week.

00:08:39
Speaker 3: Would be necessary, and recommended a fine of ten thousand dollars per tree.

00:08:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, that'll teach him.

00:08:48
Speaker 1: It's just unbelievable.

00:08:50
Speaker 2: Is that supposed to correct bad behavior? Or is that supposed to address a one billion dollar budget shortfall?

00:08:57
Speaker 6: Bingo, I know that the the fines have been going up. That ten thousand dollars a tree seems like that's a lot of money, you know, too high. It seems pretty excessive.

00:09:11
Speaker 2: Christopher Campbell is a can't you like take a city or county to court if they lay that level of excessive fees because that technically qualifies under cruel and unusual punishment.

00:09:22
Speaker 1: But here's the deal. The trees had to be trimmed and the city failed to do it. If he lost his insurance policy over that, then what do you do Because for most mortgages, they require that you have insurance, and if he couldn't buy insurance, he had no option.

00:09:44
Speaker 3: Christopher Campbell is a certified tree arborist owner of CC Tree Design. He helps manage urban trees, offering services like tree pruning and risk assessments. Do you see this tree confusion happen a lot?

00:09:57
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's actually pretty common. I think as goes on, people are starting to learn, and you know, the fines are really unfortunate.

00:10:05
Speaker 3: Treet trimming used to be under the homeowner's purviewed, but the city assumed that responsibility for all public street trees in twenty seventeen.

00:10:13
Speaker 2: Well, if you're going to assume that responsibility, then shouldn't you, I don't know, trim the trees. No, what they were going to do was assume the responsibility because they didn't like how certain people were having them trimmed, but then they were just never going to do it.

00:10:30
Speaker 3: After Proposition E passed.

00:10:32
Speaker 6: People don't realize, but the treated growth.

00:10:34
Speaker 2: I wonder how many voters in San Francisco even knew what that measure was about.

00:10:40
Speaker 1: Very few people.

00:10:41
Speaker 6: People don't realize. But the tree that grows in front of their home on the sidewalk and what we call is a sidewalk basin, that's actually city property, right, that's the public ride away.

00:10:49
Speaker 3: Campbell explains. Even certain trees on private property require a special permit for pruning if there's a bureaucracy.

00:10:56
Speaker 2: Goin a bureaucracy.

00:10:59
Speaker 1: They really can't help themselves, can they.

00:11:01
Speaker 6: If there's a tree that's over twelve inches of trunk diameter, twenty feet of height, or fifteen feet of spread, that tree is considered a significant tree and is also protected.

00:11:12
Speaker 3: Public Work says it distributed flyers, door hangers, and mailed postcards over the years alerting residents to the twenty seventeen.

00:11:19
Speaker 2: You know, it's fascinating to me how much local government cares about trees, but they don't care about clearing brush that lends to wildfires that burns down all the trees.

00:11:29
Speaker 1: No, they're so hung up on making sure that the homeowners don't care for the trees and trim the trees, but they don't care enough to do it themselves.

00:11:38
Speaker 3: Public Work says it distributed flyers, door hangers, and mailed postcards over the years alerting residents to the twenty seventeen changes.

00:11:46
Speaker 2: But Dennis, do you think people pay attention to that local of an issue where they're going to pay attention to a flyer that says, hey, San Francisco now is responsible for these trees, not you, So no trimming, It's going right in the trash.

00:12:00
Speaker 3: But Dennis, who lives in Marin, says he nor his father ever received any notice.

00:12:05
Speaker 4: Kept in the dark. Why can't they put on that in.

00:12:07
Speaker 1: With the tax boom?

00:12:08
Speaker 3: The city says the municipal code does not require that. Instead, Public Works refers property owners to their website, where information is posted about maintenance responsibilities.

00:12:19
Speaker 2: And you know, everybody in San Francisco every single day checks for updates on the San Francisco Department of Public Works website.

00:12:29
Speaker 1: What do you think the city would have done had he been dropped from his insurance policy.

00:12:33
Speaker 2: Nothing?

00:12:34
Speaker 1: They would have said, Oh, that's too bad.

00:12:38
Speaker 3: Including a street tree map, but the primary owner at the time, Dennis's father, was ninety four.

00:12:44
Speaker 4: He didn't.

00:12:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think Dad was checking the website.

00:12:47
Speaker 4: Nope, he didn't look at websites. He didn't have email, so I.

00:12:52
Speaker 2: Think that's he was probably happier.

00:12:59
Speaker 4: So I think that's not reasonable.

00:13:01
Speaker 3: Dennis tried to appeal the fifty thousand dollars fine, but he's frustrated with the process.

00:13:07
Speaker 5: And they've used photos where they've trimmed the trees after I've trimmed them.

00:13:11
Speaker 4: They were probably four feet taller.

00:13:13
Speaker 3: Public Works acknowledges contracted Arborous have been sent to Dennis's street, but denies any additional pruning was performed on the trees adjacent to his property.

00:13:22
Speaker 2: As for his so they're doing their own tree trimming and they're going after him for the tree trimming. I'm telling you this is a rigged game where you lose either way.

00:13:36
Speaker 3: As for his fifty grand fine, public Works told us after further review, a more senior inspector determined that the trees may recover, though with reduced lifespan and compromise structure. Based on that assessment, public Works recommended reducing the fines to twelve nine hundred and fifty dollars.

00:13:54
Speaker 2: See what happens when you get the news involved. It shouldn't even be that though, it should be zero. If the city doesn't trim the trees to the point to where the insurance companies are dropping homeowners from their policies, and homeowners step in and have the trees trimmed, the only thing the city should get is a bill.

00:14:15
Speaker 6: The information is out there.

00:14:16
Speaker 4: I didn't know this process is so unfair.

00:14:19
Speaker 3: As a general guideline, Public Works recommends that residents allow the bureau.

00:14:23
Speaker 2: How hard would it have been to say, oh, well, you weren't really supposed to trim those, but now you know, and he would say, oh, I'll make sure the next time, I'll call you. But no, we have to treat the taxpayers the homeowners like the criminals.

00:14:38
Speaker 1: They're so aggressive too.

00:14:40
Speaker 3: As a general guideline, Public Works recommends that residents allow the Bureau of Urban Forest Street to prune street trees located in the public right of way, like on sidewalks in this case, And if you have a situation like this on your street concerned about the clearance around power lines, the city says to contact pgen for assistance.

00:14:58
Speaker 2: Yes, because they're super responsive.

00:15:01
Speaker 1: You know what this reminds me of. Remember when Arnold Schwarzenegger, former governor of the state of California, had a pothole in front of his home for years and years and years, kept calling it in, kept going through the proper channels. No one would do anything about it. So he finally filled the hole himself and put it on social media. The city was there the next day to tear it out.

00:15:24
Speaker 2: Yep.

00:15:25
Speaker 3: And lastly, if you're wondering if you own the trees near your property, you can look that up using the public Works street tree map. We have the link posted on our website ABC seven news dot Com slash seven on your Side. I'm Stephanie Sierra for ABC seven I Witness News, all right.

00:15:41
Speaker 8: And just in tonight, not long ago, San Francisco public Works telling seven on your Side that they will cut the reduced fine in half to around sixty four hundred dollars.

00:15:51
Speaker 2: If why don't they just wave the whole damn fine.

00:15:57
Speaker 1: That is the right thing to do, so that means the city is in cape bull of doing it.

00:16:01
Speaker 8: The property owner follows city regulations. We'll see what happens as we go forward.

00:16:05
Speaker 2: So they go from fifty thousand dollars to twelve thousand dollars to six thousand dollars just because they saw this story was gonna get on the TV.

00:16:14
Speaker 1: This is a horrible abuse of power, but it's just what goes on here on a daily basis.

00:16:21
Speaker 2: Let's go to John and Woodland Hills. John.

00:16:24
Speaker 4: Hello.

00:16:27
Speaker 9: Yeah, about a year ago, I have a large oak tree out of the front of my house and it's got really overgrown. And the fire apartment came by one day and they said, you know, the fire engine doesn't clear the tree anymore. You gotta get this trim back. I thought, okay, sure, that shouldn't be a big deal. I go to the city, I said, the fire department sent me off. I need because it's the oak three trims. They said, no, you can't turn that oak tree. That's a herd of joke tree. So it looks like a big weed to me anyway, So go back to the fire department. They said, no, we're gonna We're gonna find you a couple of thousand dollars. You could get that tree. Any damage to the fire truck. The engine can't cut at free as it goes down the street. And so I go back to the building department and reluctantly they said, well, okay, we'll give you a permit. We'll we have to send there someone to supervise the cutting. So they said, I line up the gardener guy stand out their supervisor. Well, we might as well have we might as well have been couldn't a scissors, And we got enough on to satisfy the department. But you know, you know, you know, it's just ridiculous, ridiculousness. And I'm not sure if somebody called in earlier on the on the the the buses, the the the bus stops, but I noticed around Woodland Hills now they're changing out all the they're changing in all the larger bus stops, and I'm putting in these little seats so nobody can sleep there. And so I'm just thinking, well, another waste of money. Millions is always going to that.

00:18:02
Speaker 1: It's wild, but it's reality here in the state of California. Thank you for the call, Sarah.

00:18:06
Speaker 2: Can you believe that the fire department says, hey, you got to trim this tree or we're gonna find you, And the city says you can't trim that tree, We're gonna find you. Then the fire department says, trim that tree, we're gonna find you.

00:18:18
Speaker 1: This is the same city where the Department of Water and Power did not tell the fire department there was no water in the fire hydrants or in the reservoir.

00:18:28
Speaker 2: Shangy, you are right, girl. The baraucracy is real.

00:18:32
Speaker 1: Eight hundred two two two five two two two is the telephone number? What eight hundred two two two five two two two. If you'd like to email the show, you can do so at Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com. That's Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com. And Randy. If you want to continue listening to us after we sign off at three, that's easy to do.

00:18:53
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00:19:31
Speaker 1: Eight hundred two two two five two two two is the telephone number. What eight hundred two two two five two two two. If you'd like to email the show, you can do so at Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com. That's Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com And Randy, what do you say we make a couple of listeners very happy?

00:19:51
Speaker 2: Well, let's do that right now. Seven ninety KABC welcomes Weezer to Thecrypto dot com Marena on October twenty on for Tickets are on sale for write ay at ticketmaster dot com. But right now caller number nine at one eight at eight seven ninety five two two doo gets a pair of tickets to the show. Tickets furnished by Live Nation Good luck dialing.

00:20:17
Speaker 1: Californians have a love hate relationship with the utilities, and by that I mean we love to hate them and It doesn't matter if you're talking about the LA Department of Water and Power, Southern California, Edison, or PG and E. The problem is that we're stuck with them. It's not like you have a beef with Coke and you can go to Pepsi or McDonald's. Does you dirty? You can't go to Burger King if you have PG and E. You're stuck with PG and E. And that's the way it is. You can complain, you can write letters to your elected representatives, but ultimately there's not much you can do. Well. In San Francisco, the City and County of San Francisco is looking at potentially filing for divorce with PG and E and John.

00:21:07
Speaker 2: How long has San Francisco been trying to get out from under the thumb of PG and E.

00:21:12
Speaker 1: A long, long, long time.

00:21:15
Speaker 2: One hundred years.

00:21:20
Speaker 1: Seems about right.

00:21:22
Speaker 2: For more on the fight to break up with PG and E in the city by the Bay, here is a report from NBC in the Bay Area. Here it is San Francisco. No, I've got to turn off the music. Here we go.

00:21:41
Speaker 10: San Francisco's bid to break up with PG and E is gaining momentum. This comes after that major blackout just before Christmas a few months ago. Investigative reporter Jackson Vanderbecken has the new details and the looming deadline here.

00:21:57
Speaker 11: On Irving Street, December twentieth. The day to the city lost power wasn't just the Saturday before Christmas. It was also the eve of the Chinese Winter Solstice celebration.

00:22:08
Speaker 3: We prepare a lot of food for the winter festival.

00:22:12
Speaker 11: Rose Chen, owner of BBQ King, had stocked up extra pork and beet to meet the internet sales rush.

00:22:19
Speaker 2: Probably Rabbit two is that popular in Chinatown?

00:22:26
Speaker 11: Yes, only to watch it spoil. When the outage lasted three.

00:22:31
Speaker 4: Days, we cannot do anything.

00:22:33
Speaker 7: Everything.

00:22:34
Speaker 2: All those short ribs went to waste because PG and E couldn't turn the lights back on.

00:22:39
Speaker 1: Oh, and those are delicious.

00:22:41
Speaker 6: Everything is a mess it up. We cannot do business.

00:22:45
Speaker 11: Across the street, Irving Seafood Market owner Tia Zang and her husband filled their van with fish.

00:22:52
Speaker 2: Oh can you imagine that smell?

00:22:55
Speaker 1: Oh?

00:22:55
Speaker 2: No, all right, John, I'm gonna give you a choice. Neither are good. Would you rather spend fifteen minutes in the Tijuana River or fifteen minutes in the vanful of expired fish right here.

00:23:10
Speaker 1: I think I take the vanful of expired fish.

00:23:14
Speaker 11: And ended up sleeping in the vehicle, using its power to keep cool water circulating in the tank.

00:23:20
Speaker 6: I put the fissi and beer, and I keep the air, and I keep a fish alive.

00:23:25
Speaker 11: But in the end the fish didn't survive and the market suffered losses of more than ten thousand dollars. The source of the nightmare here on Irving Street was actually miles away at Peace.

00:23:37
Speaker 2: I'm just realizing what that story was about. What that's one of those markets in Chinatown where you buy the live fish and they kill it right there for you, like.

00:23:48
Speaker 1: With red lobster and the lobsters in the tank.

00:23:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a I'm a modern individual. I need to be a little removed from seeing the eyes of the food I'm eating.

00:24:02
Speaker 1: Some people are old school.

00:24:04
Speaker 11: The source of the nightmare here on Irving Street was actually miles away at PG and E's station south of market.

00:24:13
Speaker 1: Emergency time with pgn E.

00:24:16
Speaker 6: We have a substation on fire.

00:24:20
Speaker 1: Uh oh.

00:24:21
Speaker 11: That call came more than an hour after PG and detected trouble at the unmanned facility and sent an electrician to the site. Utility officials acknowledged it's.

00:24:30
Speaker 1: Time for PGA to be replaced.

00:24:33
Speaker 8: It's time for San Francisco to having municipally on utility.

00:24:36
Speaker 11: Longtime public power advocate City Supervisor Matt Dorsey chaired a hearing in February pushing for answers.

00:24:43
Speaker 12: For more than one hundred and twenty years, we have had the humbling privilege of serving the city.

00:24:49
Speaker 2: There's nothing humbling about PG and E. So just stop it now. Although here's what you have to consider. The alternative is for the City and County of San Francisco to run the power company. Look at how they handled the tree trimming issue. I understand that, And yes, you can look at LADWP as being a disaster, but there are plenty of examples of you municipally owned utilities in California that run pretty darn well, SMUD being one of them. Okay, do you trust the City and County of San Francisco to do it? That's a good.

00:25:25
Speaker 1: Point, and we do not take this response.

00:25:28
Speaker 2: But you know what, PG and E is the worst they are.

00:25:33
Speaker 1: This responsibility lightly.

00:25:35
Speaker 11: PG and E CEO su Meet Singh told supervisors the fire broke out when a single circuit breaker failed at a substation the utility had already spent two hundred million dollars to upgrade.

00:25:48
Speaker 8: You just expect that these things are going to get better, and they never do well.

00:25:51
Speaker 11: Dorsey welcomes PG and E taking responsibility.

00:25:54
Speaker 2: They still haven't paid out most of the claims for all those shop owners, that all the rotten meat and fish.

00:26:00
Speaker 1: No, but they never have to. The people in Paradise, California were never adequately compensated.

00:26:07
Speaker 11: While Dorsey welcomes PGE taking responsibility, he says the fire in December was the third to hit the same substation, and the power outage was one of seven the city had to endure in just one month.

00:26:20
Speaker 8: There was a time that PG and could point to their great record on reliability and safety.

00:26:24
Speaker 2: And I think that they don't have one on either of those. How long ago are we talking here?

00:26:31
Speaker 8: And I think that ship sailed a couple decades ago.

00:26:33
Speaker 11: The city has actually been working for years on trying to buy out PG and E twice offering two point five billion dollars for its power lines, polls, and substation equipment, but the utility has twice rejected the offers as too low. The city took its case to the State's Public Utilities Commission.

00:26:53
Speaker 2: You mean the board made up of Gavin Newsom appointees who are all connected to or former executives of pg and E and so Cal Edison and SDG and E.

00:27:03
Speaker 1: See, this is why when Republicans go, well, what does it matter If we have two Republicans on the November ballot and one wins, the legislature is still not going to give them any good legislation to sign. Yeah, but if you're governor, you can appoint people to the Public Utilities Commission, which means you can have sane people making these decisions as opposed to the crowd that we have. Now.

00:27:28
Speaker 11: The city took its case to the state's Public Utilities Commission, hoping to move the process along. The CPUC has now given the city until April to come up with a final updated offer to buy the company's grid, and PGEN has until October to respond with its own appraisal.

00:27:45
Speaker 2: Of course, we're moving at the speed of molasses.

00:27:49
Speaker 1: That's the way it works to me.

00:27:51
Speaker 2: The big issues like the rates are just too high and they keep going up there. The former they did get six rate hike increases approved in one year from the CPUC, that's one hell of a regulator.

00:28:01
Speaker 1: We got there, thanks Gavin, and they keep going up.

00:28:05
Speaker 11: A former cheap utility economist turn consultant Mark Ellis says, the price PG and E comes up with maybe far more than San Francisco can pay with bonds and still hope to lower bills.

00:28:19
Speaker 2: See PG and E wants to the way this works is we'd have to buy a bunch of their infrastructure, and PG and E is giving these inflated figures that would make it impossible to do that.

00:28:31
Speaker 1: And if you think about it, it's not like there's another potential buyer out there. Only the city and County of San Francisco would be interested in buying it and then running their own utility. So from the point of view of PG and E, if San Francisco is going to purchase it from him, they're going to pay a king's ransom.

00:28:50
Speaker 2: You know what, if Tom Steyer doesn't make it into the top two and he really wants to put his money where his mouth is, maybe he can buy that infrastructure.

00:29:00
Speaker 11: And still hope to lower bills.

00:29:02
Speaker 2: If you were to take them over, you're basically saying, Okay, any potential savings I'm paying upfront to PGENE to make them go away.

00:29:10
Speaker 8: No one's saying it's going to be an easy path.

00:29:12
Speaker 11: City attorney David Chu says PG and E can't just name any price. It has to be reasonable and justified under the law. Andy says, every day the complex process goes on is another day San Franciscans must live with all the problems.

00:29:26
Speaker 12: This is putting the safety of our residents at risk.

00:29:29
Speaker 11: Well, the city has its safety concerns, so does PG and E, Long arguing San Francisco doesn't have the experience needed to run an urban power grid let alone.

00:29:39
Speaker 2: PG and E doesn't get to go after anybody for not having a good track record on safety. They got all the experience in the world and they burned down half the state. I love the fact that no one is disputing that they offer an inferior product. It's just we're offering an inferior product, and we're not going to give you any alternatives.

00:30:00
Speaker 1: Deal with it.

00:30:01
Speaker 11: Long arguing San Francisco doesn't have the experience needed to run an urban power grid, let alone less expensively.

00:30:09
Speaker 4: We're up to the task.

00:30:10
Speaker 11: Barbara Hale is with the San Francisco Utilities Commission. She insists the city has plenty of experience.

00:30:17
Speaker 3: Two point seven million customers rely on their critical water services.

00:30:21
Speaker 4: From this agency. We can step up and do the same.

00:30:24
Speaker 11: For electricity, the SFPUC runs Hetchhatchy Power, delivering both water and power from Yosemite to the city and maintains lines.

00:30:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are a couple of parts of the city that actually are maintained by a city owned grid, and I don't hear a whole lot of complaints there.

00:30:42
Speaker 11: And maintains lines to deliver power to city customers generated at this solar array at the Sunset Reservoir as well.

00:30:49
Speaker 7: This was unacceptable.

00:30:50
Speaker 11: Pgeni Sarah Yol told the supervisors what happened in December was an unacceptable lapse and pledged to expedite compensating businesses.

00:30:59
Speaker 3: Know that during the outage and of the days that followed, we did not meet our high standards of performance.

00:31:05
Speaker 2: We must do better.

00:31:09
Speaker 1: It's unreal how they just have the same response every time they have a massive failure that costs US millions or billions of dollars.

00:31:19
Speaker 2: When they poison the water in the seventies, we need to do better when they blew up San Bruno in twenty ten, we need to do better. When they burned down Paradise in twenty seventeen, we need to do better. When they left San Francisco in darkness for three days last December, we need to do better.

00:31:36
Speaker 1: Well, this is the best they can do.

00:31:39
Speaker 11: On Irving Street. Rose Chen says Pganie is typically reliable.

00:31:43
Speaker 5: P Danny did a good job, but sometimes the accident happen.

00:31:47
Speaker 4: You never know.

00:31:48
Speaker 11: Chen says that recently Piganie made good on promises and compensated her for her losses from December's nightmare.

00:31:56
Speaker 2: They bought all the rotten pork.

00:32:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd stay away from that seafood tower at the PG and E Christmas party.

00:32:04
Speaker 11: Jackson Vanderbecken, NBC Bay Area, we investigate.

00:32:09
Speaker 10: If you have a story tip for Jackson or anyone else in our investigative, you and here's our information, give us a call eight eight eight Okay.

00:32:15
Speaker 2: So that's what's going on with the never ending battle to divorce San Francisco from Pacific Gas and Electric. Eight hundred two two two five two two two is telephone number one eight hundred two two two five two two two. If you'd like to email the show, you can do so at Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com. That's Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com. And Randy, I think we have time for one more addition to the California crime blodder.

00:32:47
Speaker 7: It's happened yet again, nye Cee.

00:32:53
Speaker 1: Time for the California crime blodder, and this one involves the elderly getting scaled again.

00:33:01
Speaker 2: Although we're not talking about grandma and grandpa. We're talking about your creepy old uncle that's trying to go after models. Uh oh, specifically an OnlyFans model that was stealing from everybody she was dating.

00:33:17
Speaker 1: Dating in quotes.

00:33:19
Speaker 2: For more, here's ABC seven Eyewitness News in Los Angeles.

00:33:25
Speaker 7: From stealing hearts to stealing property, From stealing hearts to stealing property, That's what Adva Levee will stand trial for. The adult model and influencer known as mea Ventura facing six felony charges accused of using dating apps.

00:33:44
Speaker 2: You know it's not good when your fake model name sounds like a porno name or a pro wrestler.

00:33:50
Speaker 7: The adult model and influencer known as mea Ventura facing six felony charges accused of using dating apps to target and burglarized wealthy older men and younger women.

00:34:02
Speaker 2: Wait, she was also going after young women.

00:34:05
Speaker 1: I guess the door swings both ways.

00:34:07
Speaker 2: Oh boy.

00:34:08
Speaker 7: The circumstance is similar to those that might play out in an elder abuse case. According to former prosecutor R. J.

00:34:14
Speaker 12: Dryling, some of the facts are a little bit different here. It's the same kind of principle, which is someone working themselves into someone's life, taking money from them under the auspices of consent.

00:34:24
Speaker 7: In a place like LA where relationships can be very transactional, how do prosecutors determine who is a sugar baby and who's a criminal.

00:34:32
Speaker 2: Didn't expect the term sugar baby to pop up in this story.

00:34:36
Speaker 1: But here we are, and boy, she was generous. Relationships are transactional.

00:34:42
Speaker 12: You know, that's going to be the ultimate issue in the case. I expect the defense to argue that these individuals, when they got into a relationship with the social media influencer, a much younger, much more attractive woman, knew what they were getting into.

00:34:55
Speaker 2: M I mean, that is the risk that you're if you think she's really into you for your looks, that's what might happen to you. Remember maybe a month or two back, we did a story about a woman in the Bay Area and an older Asian woman who met some guy on Facebook and ended up giving the guy all of her money and got scammed. Happens all the time.

00:35:21
Speaker 1: The difference is she met him on Facebook and he was trying to portray himself as a businessman. The guys look for OnlyFans models who were twenty years old and looked like they could be in a magazine.

00:35:37
Speaker 12: A much younger, much more attractive woman knew what they were getting into.

00:35:40
Speaker 7: The Allegations of deception stretching beyond southern California, with police reports filed against Levie in Nevada, Florida, and even overseas in France and Italy.

00:35:50
Speaker 2: Boy, this woman stealing from everybody. She must be making it a lot of money.

00:35:56
Speaker 12: Even though La County might not have jurisdiction over the cases overseas or in different states, they can actually bring in those witnesses to come and testify in their case to show this wasn't just a one time thing, that this was part of a broader course of conduct.

00:36:12
Speaker 1: She's a female tender swindower. I mean, that's kind of what this is.

00:36:15
Speaker 7: Michael Sartain is commending the LAPD's police work that's now led to the felony charges. Levi appearing on his podcast Access Vegas in twenty twenty four.

00:36:24
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I remember this. She goes on this guy's podcast. I guess because she's an OnlyFans influencer and she stole from everybody's purse in the green room.

00:36:38
Speaker 7: That's now led to the felony charges. Levie appearing on his podcast Access Vegas in twenty twenty four.

00:36:43
Speaker 1: She stole stuff from the purses.

00:36:45
Speaker 2: Do you subscribe to that one?

00:36:47
Speaker 1: What was it?

00:36:48
Speaker 2: Access Vegas?

00:36:50
Speaker 11: No?

00:36:51
Speaker 2: I think you will be.

00:36:52
Speaker 1: She stole stuff from the purses that were in my green room while the people were on my show. That's not simply a criminal. That is a kleptomania.

00:37:00
Speaker 2: There you go, the only Fans model that is on trial for stealing from everybody.

00:37:11
Speaker 1: And this woman was able to do it over and over and over again. It must be like shooting fish in a barrel.

00:37:21
Speaker 2: Well, sometimes, if this is your only match on tender, you go for it. You don't look at any of the red flags and you say, damn, she's hot, let's go.

00:37:34
Speaker 1: I wonder what kind of self confidence these people must have to think that an only fans model is going to be wan to be with an elderly shut in.

00:37:45
Speaker 2: Delusion is very powerful, my friend sounds like it