Power Play 

Editor:

At an Arcata City Council meeting the California Clean Power principals told us they'd learned how to set up CCA systems by setting up Sonoma County's ("Arcata Eyes Costly Divorce," July 30). They did that as county officials. But the model they're urging on us is not that model: It adds a new layer of organization, to wit, their new private company. Pardon my jaundiced eye, but their in-house feasibility study looks a bit self-serving to me. Evidently we're helpless without them.

CEO Peter Rumble says California Clean Power (not to be confused with our other suitor with the same acronym, Community Choice Partners) is set to share the financial risk among other communities who may use its services. What's stopping the Redwood Coast Energy Authority from reaching out to those other communities? And while CalCleanPower's middleman-for-profit model is untried (we'd be their first customer), the not-for-profit models are legion. OK, not legion, but there are Marin and Sonoma counties, which between them also cover six cities in two other counties, and the unincorporated part of a third. San Francisco's finally moving forward on its own, Davis wants to join Marin, Santa Barbara's at least flirting with the idea (though it doesn't look like St. Barbara was the flirting type). San Diego's consulting a lawyer who helped set up Marin's system. As far as I can tell, none of these entities is looking to farm out the job to either CCP or, uh, CCP.

Jamie Flower, Arcata