Why San Jose’s Mayor Wants Customers to Own PG&E

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On Sunday, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared California in a state of emergency, as autumn winds whipped fires that continued to rage from north of the Bay Area to near San Diego.

The biggest, most destructive blaze, the Kincade Fire, forced more than 180,000 people in Wine Country to flee from their homes — many of whom were reliving the horror of deadly fires that ravaged the area in 2017.

The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office said on Sunday night that the fire, which had torn through 54,298 acres and destroyed 94 structures, was just 5 percent contained.

And then, on top of that, there were the power outages.

[Read the latest updates about the Kincade Fire and power outages here.]

Pacific Gas & Electric, for the third time in a month, shut off power to customers pre-emptively in hopes of stopping its equipment from starting catastrophic wildfires.

As of Sunday evening, as many as 2.7 million people around the Bay Area were set to be without power in blackouts that could last for days.

The outages have given rise to a chorus of outrage from officials like Mr. Newsom, who railed against what they said was poor communication and dangerous imprecision on PG&E’s part during the previous power shut-off.

Mr. Newsom and others have also begun floating big changes to the utility’s structure as it navigates a Gordian knot of a bankruptcy.

[See the Kincade Fire in pictures.]

Mr. Newsom told Bloomberg that he wants Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway to make a takeover bid for the troubled utility, which could face billions of dollars in liabilities for its role in starting past wildfires. The governor said Mr. Buffett’s company was “one of the few that are in a position to make a significant run at this.”

Another idea, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is getting a big push from the mayor of the state’s third largest city and the biggest city served by PG&E: San Jose.

In a nutshell, Mayor Sam Liccardo told me last week that he wants to explore the idea of transitioning PG&E from investor ownership to customer ownership.

That would be a way of making the utility’s interests better aligned with the public’s interests, as he explained in a recent memo. It could also force utility operators to include ratepayers in more decisions.

“It’s become apparent to all the stakeholders that the company has hit peak dysfunction,” he said. “And dramatic measures are needed to ensure that we have a sustainable entity.”

It may be a major shift, but it’s not a new idea: There are already more than 900 utility cooperatives in the nation that serve 19 million ratepayers, the memo said.

Of course, the utility’s leaders would be likely to oppose such a change. The company has so far staved off attempts by other cities, like San Francisco, to buy PG&E infrastructure to form municipal utilities.

“It’s fair to say that PG&E has not been aligned with my positions for several months,” Mr. Liccardo said when I asked whether he expected PG&E to be open to the idea. “Nor do I expect them to be anytime soon.”

According to The Journal, PG&E reiterated that its energy systems aren’t for sale and that proponents of a customer ownership plan — which could eventually include other cities — are likely to take a proposal directly to the state’s utility regulators.

Mr. Liccardo said his ultimate priority was making the city’s energy supplies more resilient amid a variety of growing, complex challenges, including wildfires, sea level rise and cyberattacks.

He said the establishment of microgrids — which essentially allow power to be generated and stored locally, rather than generated and then transmitted long distances using vulnerable infrastructure — and the wider deployment of solar energy would be critical.

[Read more about microgrids here.]

Although a nonprofit, ratepayer-owned entity would, he said, be able to borrow more cheaply, there’s no way around the fact that this would require a lot of money.

But he said the status quo was untenable.

“We’ve got to make the necessary investments to ensure we have a functioning utility that serves the greatest job engine in the history of America — Silicon Valley,” he said. “It’s going to be local communities leading the way.”

On Sunday afternoon, such an effort got at least one presidential candidate’s support.

“It is time to begin thinking about public ownership of major utilities,” Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted.

Tell us about your fire experience...

Stay safe and tell us how you’ve been affected by the fires in Northern and Southern California. Have you had to flee your home? Are you without power? Email us at catoday@nytimes.com.

Read more coverage of fires and blackouts:

• Fearing that the worst of the inferno is still ahead, officials ordered more than a third of Sonoma County’s residents to evacuate. [The Press Democrat]

• Here are maps of wildfires, power outages and evacuation zones. [The New York Times]

• Here are updates from overnight. [The San Francisco Chronicle]

• Here’s what’s closed around the Bay during the power outage. [The Mercury News]

• A section of I-80 was closed and hundreds of Vallejo and Crockett residents were asked to evacuate after a wildfire broke out on Sunday morning. The interstate was reopened later in the day. [The Vallejo Times Herald]

• In a warming world, researchers are focusing on how to live in an ecosystem that’s primed to burn. [The New York Times]

• “People aren’t taking any chances.” After two years of deadly, destructive fires, Californians are fleeing when they’re told to go. [The New York Times]

• California officially emerged from drought in March after eight years. Many wondered whether that would mean this year’s wildfire season would be quieter. For a while, it was. [The New York Times]

• If you missed it, here’s how many people are losing homeowners insurance because of wildfires. [The New York Times]

Here’s what else you may have missed over the weekend

We often link to sites that limit access for nonsubscribers. We appreciate your reading Times coverage, but we also encourage you to support local news if you can.

• The December Democratic presidential debate will be hosted by PBS NewsHour and Politico at U.C.L.A. [The New York Times]

• Representative Katie Hill, a prominent freshman Democrat from an L.A.-area district, said she will resign amid an ethics investigation. The decision comes after she said her husband, whom she is divorcing, leaked nude photos of her to a conservative website. [The New York Times]

• Another horse died at Santa Anita Park, bringing the racetrack’s death toll since December to 36. [The New York Times]

• People in California and elsewhere are going “Cali sober,” a term that was clearly not coined by someone from here that describes when you (mostly) stop drinking and doing drugs other than marijuana. [The Cut]

Also: Here’s what a new weed cafe in West Hollywood says about the cannabis industry right now. [The New York Times]

• The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Ennis House in L.A. sold for $18 million. [SFGate]

• And finally, an L.A.-based photographer makes portraits of people and their pets staged to look like film noir stills. [Los Angeles Magazine]

California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes.com. Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for California Today here.

Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, graduated from U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter, @jillcowan.

California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.