California Public Utilities Commission harasses attorney Mike Aguirre

[bananas]

http://acehoffman.blogspot.com/2014/06/video-california-public-utilities.html

Video: California Public Utilities Commission harasses attorney Mike Aguirre

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Last week (June 16th, 2014) I witnessed former San Diego city attorney Mike Aguirre being harassed by the California state police prior to his speaking before the California Public Utilities Commission about the San Onofre steam generator debacle. Fortunately I had my camera handy:

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Here is a report about the incident by Charles Langley:

Looks like the sort of thing you would expect to see in a Banana Republic or a totalitarian state, but it happened right here in California ....

On June 17, 2014, Karen Miller, a bureaucrat with the California Public Utilities Commission's Public Advisor's Office, ordered armed highway patrol officers to seize documents from Attorney Mike Aguirre as he was preparing to make a presentation at a public hearing to speak out against the $3.3 Billion bailout of the failed nuclear generators at San Onofre. Two of the CPUC's Commissioners have endorsed the bailout which has been fraudulently portrayed as a refund.*

The officers had been ordered to search Mr. Aguirre's work papers, and were instructed to forbid Mr. Aguirre from recording a public meeting.

This unlawful harassment, search, and attempts to muzzle Mr. Aguirre under orders of a Public Utility Commission official were meant to intimidate or silence Mr. Aguirre and create a chilling effect on free speech at CPUC hearings by other members of the public.

<snip>

[bananas]

1. Armed with papers: Public Utilities Commission advisor calls cops on Michael Aguirre

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2014/jun/17/ticker-armed-papers/

Armed with papers

Public Utilities Commission advisor calls cops on Michael Aguirre

By Don Bauder, June 17, 2014

Yesterday (June 16), the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) held an open meeting in Costa Mesa at which proponents and opponents of the San Onofre payment settlement could express their opinions.

<snip>

Suddenly, two California Highway Patrol officers, under the direction of Karen Miller, the CPUC's advisor to participants in public meetings, descended on Aguirre, demanding that he hand them the box of papers he was carrying.

"They (CPUC officials) were terrified I was going to pass something out at the meeting," says Aguirre.

What did they think he would pass out to attendees? Aguirre believes it was information on the blowup of commission head Michael Peevey, who at a May 14 hearing on the $3.3 billion giveaway, shouted at Aguirre, "I'm not here to answer your goddamn question. Now shut up! Shut up!" A video of Peevey's blowup made the rounds on the web.

"In my 40 years of practice I have never heard of someone attempting to take a lawyer's work product away from him at a public meeting," says Aguirre. "This is something out of Nazi Germany."

Aguirre says he had no intention to pass out anything to the audience, but says he had a right to do so had he wanted to. Aguirre instructed the CHP officers of his constitutional rights and they backed off. He gave them nothing. He has filed a complaint with the California Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board.

<snip>

[bananas]

2. Peeved Commissioner Peevey hints at CPUC's disarray: The regulators' fixed deal is naked

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2014/may/26/ticker-peeved-peevey-speaks-cpucs-disarray/

Peeved Commissioner Peevey hints at CPUC's disarray

The regulators' fixed deal is naked

By Don Bauder, May 26, 2014

On May 14, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) held an evidentiary hearing on a deal that would permit Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) to sock ratepayers for $3.3 billion over mistakes made by Edison and/or its supplier at the now-shuttered San Onofre nuclear plant.

Negotiations over the settlement took nine months, but the evidentiary hearing lasted only three and a half hours; ratepayers got only 40 minutes to state their case. San Diego media covered the story well, focusing heavily on Michael Peevey, head of the CPUC, shouting at ratepayer advocate Mike Aguirre, "I'm not here to answer your goddamn question. Now shut up! Shut up!"

I was on vacation when all this occurred, but I would like to add my belated interpretation. Peevey, a former lobbyist and president of Edison, was frustrated because, as Aguirre says, "Their case is in complete disarray."

The CPUC, which is supposed to protect ratepayers, only worries about utility profits, and this was evident in the record of that hearing. Peevey was upset because Aguirre had forced Edison's president, Ronald Litzinger, to confess that critical information was not in front of the commission.

<snip>

[Dustlawyer]

7. Saw this same thing happen in 2004 I think when Governor Oops Perry went around the

State of a Texas having ceremonial signings of the new medical malpractice Tort Reform law. When he and his minions came to a local hospital to do another one of these rub your nose in it signings. We are outside the front of the hospital protesting with a bunch of Union folks when the Governor's security guy comes up to the cops and says something to the cop. The cop comes and asks us for our tickets and says we have to leave without a ticket. I start asking the doctors and nurses streaming by going inside for the Gov's speech about us evil Trial Lawyers if they have tickets. After no one does the cop backs off.
Meanwhile another local attorney I know shows up with a young boy in a wheel Chair, strapped in and obviously severely brain damaged. I learn that his mother died in his birth and he was left like he was due to medical malpractice. His partner in the case has medical records under his arms, they go inside. Meanwhile the security guy try's once more to get the cops to run us off. He says we are not welcome on the property and I respond it is not private, it is public and we are within our rights. The cop brushes him off and he goes inside. A few minutes later all Hell broke loose. Several cops bust out dragging the lawyer in handcuffs. The cops were told by the same security guy that the lawyer has a stack of flyers he was handing out. They went to grab them and the lawyer fought with the cop over his client's confidential file. He was sprayed, tazed, cuffed, and dragged outside and put in the back of the cop car. I got the cops outside to let him be interviewed from the back of the car before they hauled him off (Cops are union members too, lol). They drove him to the police station where he sat out in the car until the event was over, then he was driven back to his car and never charged! The Hospital and the city settled for a couple of million for violating his and his client's civil and privacy right!

[bayareaboy]

3. Mr Aguire should get the twenty first century ...

Tom Mooney award.

Frankly I don't know who is the most culpable the utilities or the State PUC commission. Or maybe they are the same.

[stuffmatters]

4. Where's Kevin Faulkoneer/Goldsmith fighting for San Diegans?

Crickets of course.

Bob Filner had serious personal problems, but he certainly was pivotal in shutting down leaking San Onofre. It was a nuclear disaster waiting to happen...millions of lives protected and stopped the threat of turning L.A. to the border into a nuclear wasteland.

Our new mayor - R but pretended not to be so much to get elected- is too busy fighting against raising minimum wage for workers who keep our vital tourist economy alive and for keeping taxpayers subsidizing business/corporate payrolls. Faulkoneer should be at that hearing protecting the pocket books of San Diegans, to whom the utilities are trying to pass off billions of debt for their & nuclear manufacturers mistakes. Shareholder and the manufacturers (G.E.) should be paying for this.

Filner would have been raising hell for San Diegans.

[DeSwiss]

5. Now we're starting to see the brick walls.....

- So either drop your pants and bend over or turn around and fight the fuckers!

K&R

[Uncle Joe]

6. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, bananas.