My turn: Petrarca not only advocated breaking the law, he was rude

I enjoyed reading Richard Gard's My Turn in Friday's Juneau Empire, praising Alaska Electric Light & Power for their efforts. This is the kind of polite and positive public discourse that we should all encourage.

Many people, including myself, were very disappointed in the My Turn from Albert Petrarca that appeared on Wednesday. This is the kind of rude and immature ranting that we should all condemn, not because it is illegal, but because it is ill-mannered.

Nevertheless, Petrarca is inciting a group of people to break the law. Yes, there are rules about this. The city code is as follows: "42.15.070 Theft of services. (a) It is unlawful for a person to obtain services which that person knows are available only for compensation, by deception or threat, or by false token or other means to avoid payment for the services. 'Services' includes ... telephone or other public service. ... (c) Theft of a service is a: (1) Class A misdemeanor if the value of the service is $50.00 or more but less than $500.00."

I'll skip over all of Petrarca's insults to public officials, every one of whom has been following the law and doing their best.

My principal complaints are the completely erroneous characterizations of AEL&P. A lot of these reflect a hatred of corporate America in general, giving us a clue to the author's mindset before the power problem happened.

First example: "AEL&P's callous self-interest and arrogance." Where is there a shred of evidence to support such a view? I have seen nothing but a strong - and amazingly skillful, as it turned out - effort by AEL&P to do what is best for the community as well as itself. AEL&P will make no profit from the fuel surcharge during the crisis and it fixed the transmission line in an unbelievably short time.

Second example: "The Snettisham disaster revealed how (AEL&P) had failed to ... insure itself ... and erect the concrete avalanche deflectors." AEL&P looked into insurance. Doing so could have cost about 20 percent of the value of replacing the whole transmission line, adding significant cost to the ratepayers. The deflectors wouldn't have worked for this situation, according to the experts.

This disaster (I would actually prefer to call this a "mishap" because "disaster" usually means dead people) was an accident of nature. AEL&P is not to blame for it. Trying to assign blame for natural events is childish.

How should the public respond to such a mishap? Well, by doing what our citizens and businesses have been doing to conserve electricity. Nearly everyone has pitched in and halved the amount of fuel used. What has government done? The city is subsidizing the electricity bills for lower income households.

Who does Petrarca think should pay his power bill? Should the oil company suppliers be forced to donate the diesel fuel that has powered the community? Should AEL&P employees be put on half salary or work for free? Does he want AEL&P to pay from its cash reserves? No can do, every nickel is going to the reconstruction. Does he want a handout from the government? There are not a lot of choices.

This is America and everyone has the right to speak as a matter of law. Society, however, depends on good manners to function, not law. America would be a shambles if its people were not generally polite, tolerant and generous. Those are the qualities that will get us through this situation, not mindless sniveling born of a pre-existing anti-corporate attitude.

Petrarca's idea of a solution is "to place the issue of public ownership on the November ballot." Really? Does he really believe that Juneau taxpayers are ready to spend about $100 million to buy a private corporation?

Finally, gentle reader, you might observe that some of the remarks above are not altogether positive. When a parent has to instill good manners, a bit of firmness might be required. Same thing here.

• Murray Walsh is a self-employed consultant residing in Juneau. He has assisted public and private clients in development projects.