Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Vasona opponents ask town to pick a new substation site before PUC hearing

Councilmembers cite concerns about adding overhead lines

Hearing is set for March 23

By Jeff Kearns

Charter Oaks residents and others near the proposed PG&E Vasona substation don't want the utility company to build the substation in their back yard. And they're pushing the town to take a position prior to a March 23 Public Utilities Commission hearing that favors one of 16 sites that PG&E has listed as possible alternatives.

Town officials, however, have made it clear they aren't eager to voice such a preference without seriously studying the ramifications of telling the PUC they favor a specific alternative.

Opponents of the substation made an unscheduled appearance during the public comment portion of the Jan. 26 Town Council meeting and presented overhead slides and handed out packets about alternate sites.

The council agreed to take a look at the alternatives and asked the town's planning staff to gather information about the proposed sites. In a Dec. 9 report, PG&E identified 16 alternate sites mostly near the intersection of highways 17 and 85, of which it says only six are possibilities.

Aggie Potter, speaking for a group of neighbors, asked the Town Council to study the matter and recommend an alternative site to the PUC. Potter also invited the council to meet with her residents' group to talk through the alternatives before making a decision.

"The Winchester site is still unacceptable to our group, and we'd like to work to find the alternatives," Potter said. Opponents worry that noise, fire danger and a drop in property values may follow the substation into the area.

"We'd like to help if we can, but we're reluctant to do it without knowing the consequences," Vice Mayor Jan Hutchins said. "There's a possibility you'd be shifting the problem from one neighborhood to another," he added. "It's a major deal, so we'd have to have a public hearing. The town shouldn't make a decision that will impact other people without first getting their input."

PG&E has planned to put a substation on the site for more than 20 years but didn't begin considering it in earnest until August 1996. The new substation would help cut down on blackouts and shorten the time it takes to restore power during outages, according to the utility company.

Any recommendation made by the town would be nonbinding, but Partick Power, an attorney hired by the Vasona area neighbors, told the Los Gatos Weekly-Times that the PUC does value local input in the decision-making process. Power worked for 13 years as a PUC administrative law judge in San Francisco before going into private practice 11 years ago.

Although planners will prepare a report on the matter for the council, councilmembers aren't sure what action, if any, they will take after that. They did agree on the importance of making an informed decision.

"We'll go from there," Mayor Linda Lubeck said. "This is a complex issue."

The solution, however, may be worse than the problem. The present site, on Winchester Boulevard near Lark Avenue, is traversed by 230-kilovolt power lines. The lines cross Los Gatos Boulevard and Highway 17 just south of Lark Avenue, cut through residential areas to Highway 85 west of the Winchester Boulevard exit, then follow the freeway westward.

If the substation were built elsewhere, a new transmission corridor for the lines would need to be built, potentially raising myriad issues, such as additional expense and more groups of unhappy residents.

These issues will be a major component of looking at the alternative sites, according to Town Manager Dave Knapp, who has been studying the proposals.

"When you talk about moving lines, a lot of people have a lot of thoughts," he said. "Wherever you go with it, there's going to be people who don't want it."

Potter asked the council to come up with a decision by Feb. 17, but because of the complexity of considering 16 sites, that may be next to impossible.

Potter told the council, "In terms of advising the PUC about land-use matters in your own community, I believe your decision would be persuasive and possibly conclusive to the PUC deliberations."

A PUC administrative law judge will preside at the public hearing in Los Gatos on March 23, and an evidenciary hearing in San Francisco on March 30.

"It's not a faceless bureaucracy, like some state agencies," Power said in a later interview. "Local input makes a difference."

His clients, he said, haven't expressed any preference among the proposed alternatives. "It's never come up," he said. Power added that his clients include homeowners in the area; residents of the Charter Oaks Townhomes, which are adjacent to the site; and the Boccardo Corporation, which owns an office building next to the site.

But he's not sure exactly whom he's working for. "A number of people have chipped in to pay the legal fees," he said.

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