I send money to a convicted felon every month.

The recipient has killed repeatedly, albeit, the courts declared it involuntary manslaughter.

This month I sent the convicted felon $200.

I do not like the felon on many levels but thanks to the State of California I have no choice but to keep sending money.

Based on what the felon tells potential investors, in a few years they’ll be raking in record money and record profits.

And it will be because you and I will be forced to pay more and more.

It’s all because Sacramento allows the felon to stay in business.

Now if they were a drug dealer that didn’t kill anyone but had run afoul with the law the state more often than not will seize their assets and sell them off and pocket the money.

But drug dealers aren’t scrutinized by the California Public Utilities Commission.

The CPUC was put in place to protect you and me from said felon and their colleagues.

With protectors like the CPUC who needs enemies?

It’s no mystery who we are talking about. It’s PG&E.

Keep in mind PG&E is a corporation. As such it can’t go to prison for being found complicit in the deaths of 84 of its customers.

Whereas, an unincorporated drug dealer sells stuff that inadvertently kills someone they get a trip to places like the Sierra Conservation Center. It’s a place where inmates can be trained to fight wildfires like the type PG&E’s equipment and years of neglected maintenance have been known to start.

Let that be a lesson to would-be criminals. Incorporate. Hire a CEO paid more money in a day than a typical PG&E residential customer makes in a lifetime or twice as much if a PG&E sparked fire leads to an earlier death than nature intended.

People we elected in Sacramento to look after the best interests as well as safety of Californians had a chance to eliminate PG&E.

Of course, we were told it wouldn’t work. The government can’t be trusted, we were told. Power rates would go sky high; we were told. PG&E has changed their corporate culture, we were told.

No less than three months after PG&E copped to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter in June 2020 for the 2018 Paradise inferno and vowed on the courtroom steps not to do it again, they did it again.

That time it was a 105-foot pine leaning over a PG&E line that a contractor for the utility marked for removal two years earlier that started the Zogg Fire in Shasta County.

At least the carnage was less. Only four people died although a firefighter was left paralyzed from the waist down as the result of fighting the blaze.

Shasta County’s district attorney wanted to pursue second degree murder charges. She went for involuntary manslaughter. That’s because the State of California offers no recourse to make corporations that kill pay a proportional price for what death they cause.

The maximum is a $10,000 fine per count. For Paradise that came to $840,000. Based on the current PG&E CEO salary and incentives she can earn $840,000 in 35 days.

It’s bad enough that people can run a corporation whose profits are assured by the state that can personally pocket millions and not be held accountable for the culture they either helped cerate or allowed to exist.

It’s significantly worse that nothing is done to end the bloodbath.

PG&E has a record of not being held accountable by the state for damage they do to their customers. The partial list includes Hinkley, San Bruno, Paradise and the Zogg Fire. It includes smaller oopsies such as the Christmas Eve death of a Rancho Cordova customer in 2008 when his home exploded due to PG&E negligence.

Let’s be clear on one point. The rank-and-file men and women that keep the lights on did not create the culture where cutting corners became the order of the day.

They did not benefit from sidestepping basic responsibilities. That honor belongs to those hauling down seven- to eight-figure compensation packages.

The State of California has allowed a corporation to flourish that is a clear threat to public health and safety.

The argument that we can’t do better is lame and self-serving.

We can do better if we didn’t have flighty leaders with attention spans of humming birds on steroids that also hunger for the sweet nectar of campaign contributions.

PG&E can and should be split up.

The examples of agencies not attached to the Sacramento bureaucracy that is complicit in PG&E’s disasters due to the see no evil tact they took for years that gave PG&E the opportunity to spawn into the corporation that made the San Bruno and Paradise infernos possible getting it right can be found up and down the state.

They range from big ones like the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power with 1.4 million customers to the Trinity Public Utility District with several thousands of customers in the rugged Trinity Alps region of Northern California.

Keep in mind  the Trinity PUD matters in countering those that side-stepped pulling the plug on PG&E.

The Trinity PUD serves a heavily forested area with a sparse population base and seemingly endless wildlands that the PG&E defenders claim government-based entities couldn’t serve if PG&E was torn asunder.

Trinity PUD has not been convicted or charged with involuntary manslaughter of its customers. It keeps power lines clear and replaces them when it should. It delivers reliable electricity. And it does so with rates roughly 50 percent lower than PG&E’s

That’s right Trinity PUD electricity is about half the price of what you and I pay.

So, what’s the big difference? Trinity PUD is governed by a board that answers directly to their neighbors in Weaverville and surrounding communities.

Their economic interests are not lining their  pockets with Wall Street sized paychecks and compensation packages or that of hedge fund investors. Their economic concern is their community.

Trinity PUD has workers with the same skills as PG&E’s boots on the ground as does Sacramento Municipal utility District, Lodi Electric, Modesto Irrigation District, Roseville Electric, and Turlock Irrigation District to name a few.

The big difference is those at the top.

Lower power rates. Increased public safety. More reliable electric service.

That’s what the customers of SMUD et al have that the ratepayers of PG&E don’t have.

Local control provides those things.

Your neighbors on the South San Joaquin Irrigation District understand that.

It’s too bad the powers that be in Sacramento don’t.

But then again, they seem quite comfortable with PG&E business model.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com