For years and years and years, there was a scrappy little newspaper in San Francisco that warned (very much obnoxiously at times) about PG&E’s continuing private control of energy and power in the Bay Area and Northern California.

That newspaper no longer exists. During my three years as a reporter there, I carefully avoided ever having to write PG&E stories, which were a near-fetish for the publisher, Bruce Brugmann.

But maybe he was right about giving public ownership a real shot in the Bay Area, even if he was annoying as shit about it at times. (It should also be noted that he was from a heartland state where public power is common.)