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State Officials Announce $6.6B Deal to Reopen Schools Statewide

Will Carruthers

Mar 2, 2021

State Officials Announce $6.6B Deal to Reopen Schools Statewide

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state officials announced a deal on a $6.6 billion legislative package Monday that would support the statewide reopening of grades K-6 by the end of the month and grades 7-12 in early April.

The package includes $2 billion in grants to support safety measures for students and educators returning to in-person classes, including personal protection equipment, improvements to classroom ventilation and regular coronavirus testing.

The remaining $4.6 billion would fund voluntary learning expansions, including extending the school year into the summer, tutoring to make up for learning lost amid the pandemic and mental health services for students.

State legislators are expected to vote on the deal by the end of the week, according to Newsom.

“So many of our kids and caregivers are celebrating this day because we all are united around coming back safely into the schools and helping with the socio-emotional supports that our kids so desperately need,” Newsom said.

The reopening plan comes after months of haggling between officials in the Newsom administration, state legislators and teachers’ unions over details like required vaccinations and a reopening timeline that all sides agree is safe.

While the package does not require the vaccination of teachers before a school can reopen, Newsom underscored the state’s vaccine prioritization for teachers that began Monday, reserving 10 percent of the weekly vaccine shipments coming into the state for K-12 educators and child care workers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have yet to deem the three vaccines currently available as safe for children under the age of 16, although modified versions of the vaccines may be available for children later this year.

However, Newsom was noncommittal about adding the vaccine to the list of those required for public school students when it becomes available, noting that any such decision will be guided by the state’s vaccine safety advisory group when the time comes.

The deal also stops short of mandating that all grades return to in-person classes across the state, instead tying those reopenings to state funding as an incentive.

The deal requires in-person instruction at public schools to resume for K-2 students and all “high-needs” students in grades K-12—including English language learners, students in the foster care system and unhoused students—by the end of March.

Schools that do not comply would lose 1 percent of their funding per day if they are not open by then.

Once a county is in the red tier of the state’s pandemic reopening system, schools would risk the same penalty if they do not offer in-person instruction to all elementary grade students and students in at least one middle or high school grade level.

Similar to the process through which the state allowed schools to reopen during last summer and fall’s swoon in cases, schools will also be required to submit detailed reopening plans to state officials and report their reopening status via the state’s w ebsite.

Schools in 35 of the state’s 58 counties have already resumed in-person classes in some form, according to the state. The plan announced Monday would incentivize in-person education in some form regardless of a county’s tier level.

“We’re not waiting to get out of this purple tier in order to get our kids safely back into in-person instruction,” Newsom said. “That’s what’s so meaningful to me, that we’re not slowing down, we’re now accelerating the pace of reopening.”

California Teachers Association president E. Toby Boyd praised the deal for including the safety measures and vaccine prioritization educators have asked for during negotiations and said the plan gets the state one step closer to schools finally reopening statewide.

“This pandemic has been difficult and wearing on all of us, and it is going to continue to take all of us to make opening our schools for in-person instruction safe, stable and successful,” Boyd said.

Bay Area officials similarly praised the plan for reopening schools over the next six weeks.

“Our kids need to safely return to the classroom,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said in a Twitter post. “We’re reviewing this plan’s details but I want to thank (Newsom) on moving this forward.”

Breed and other San Francisco officials have butted heads with the San Francisco Unified School District in recent weeks for the district’s failure to begin reopening schools.

While the district released its latest proposal last week to reopen elementary schools, Superintendent Vincent Matthews said in a statement Monday that the state’s package will not change its reopening plans, which still do not include a tentative date to reopen.

“Though I wish it could, the governor’s announcement does not change our timeline because there are still many steps we need to take to get there and many of those aren’t able to be expedited, even with financial incentives,” Matthews said. “Make no mistake, we share the urgency to offer in-person instruction to as many students as soon as possible and more resources will help.”

The Education Trust-West, an Oakland-based nonprofit education advocacy group, framed the plan as the means to an end, arguing that simply returning the state’s education system to its pre-pandemic state will not be good enough for underprivileged students.

A poll that the group released last week of 600 parents across the state found that nearly 75 percent of parents with children age 5 and younger are concerned about their child’s education and development due to the pandemic.

The poll also found that low-income parents and parents of color were particularly affected by the pandemic-induced losses of child care and in-person classes.

“Parents are increasingly worried about the academic, social, and emotional development their students are missing through distance learning–and with good reason. … (S)chools will need to work with parents and community partners like never before to generate creative, engaging, fun learning experiences while tending to students’ social, emotional and mental health needs,” Education Trust-West executive director Dr. Elisha Smith Arrillaga said in a statement.

State legislators representing the Bay Area were optimistic about the plan and the safe reopening of the region’s schools in the coming weeks.

“I am hopeful that this plan will address the learning loss that students have experienced without in-person instruction, while ensuring that our educators, students, and families are as protected as possible,” said state Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose.

State Moves Napa, SF, Santa Clara Counties Into Red Tier

Will Carruthers

Mar 2, 2021

State Moves Napa, SF, Santa Clara Counties Into Red Tier

Napa, San Francisco and Santa Clara counties moved out of the state’s most-restrictive COVID-19 pandemic reopening tier Tuesday as case rates continue to decline across the Bay Area.

The three counties moved out of the purple tier and into the red tier based on their coronavirus case and test positivity rates. With San Mateo and Marin counties falling out of the purple tier last week, there are now five Bay Area counties in the red tier.

Whereas most business sectors were required to operate outdoors or remain closed under purple tier restrictions, the tier changes will allow the three counties to resume indoor operations at 10-25 percent capacities for businesses like gyms, restaurants, movie theaters, museums, zoos and aquariums.

“This year has been incredibly hard on our residents and small businesses, so every step forward is critical to making sure they can survive this pandemic,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said in a statement. “To make sure we can keep moving forward, we all need to stay focused and continue to follow the health guidance.”

San Francisco businesses and activities can reopen under red tier protocols Wednesday at 8am, according to city officials. In Napa County, red tier activities can resume at 12:01am Wednesday.

In addition to Napa, San Francisco and Santa Clara, four other counties across the state moved into the red tier Tuesday, reducing the number of purple tier counties in California to 40.

At least a dozen more counties are expected to move into less-restrictive tiers next week as well, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The state’s county-level industry guidelines can be found here.

Petaluma Creamery Pays $844k Towards City Wastewater Bill

Will Carruthers

Mar 1, 2021

Petaluma Creamery Pays $844k Towards City Wastewater Bill

Larry Peter may have bought his beloved Petaluma Creamery a little more time.

In a last-minute twist, a representative of the historic business delivered a cashier’s check for $844,328.17 to Petaluma City Hall on Monday afternoon, a substantial payment which covers more than half of the company’s debt to the city of Petaluma for unpaid water fines and fees accrued since Peter purchased the Creamery in 2004.

Jordan Green, an assistant city attorney, told the Bohemian that the Creamery’s Monday-afternoon payment will cover the business’s unpaid wastewater discharge bills. The company has yet to pay additional sewer capacity rental fees ($426,096.20) and permit violation fines ($552,248.30).

Green did not immediately respond to a request to clarify how the city calculated its total bill of $1.425 million, since the three separate categories total $1.822 million.

The latest chapter in a long-running battle between the City and the Creamery began on Dec. 21, when City Manager Peggy Flynn sent a letter to Peter threatening to effectively shut down the Creamery, at least temporarily, if Peter did not complete a long list of tasks by March 1. The threat letter, which came after the city had worked with Peter to comply with safety and environmental requirements for years, caused a rush of work at the Creamery.

In a Friday, Feb. 26, letter to Peter, Flynn acknowledged the Creamery’s efforts over the past two months to comply with city regulations. However, due to uncompleted work and an unpaid debt, Flynn said the city would revoke the business’s wastewater discharge permit on Saturday, March 13, if the business missed the March 1 deadline.

So far, it is unclear whether the Creamery’s 11th-hour payment will change the city’s plans laid out in Flynn’s Feb. 26 letter. In a statement on Monday, March 1, Green said only that city officials “will meet this week to further discuss next steps.”

But, in her Feb. 26 letter, Flynn stated that the Creamery would have to pay its total outstanding wastewater debts and fines by March 1, rejecting Peter’s request of the city to allow him to follow a payment plan.

The city’s decision not to accept a payment plan may be explained by Peter’s earlier failures to pay fines and fees in a timely fashion.

As the Bohemian has previously reported, the Creamery, which Peter purchased in 2004, owed the city $604,720 by September 2010. In November 2018, a judge ordered Peter to pay the city $624,046 in 24 installments. Peter did not pay the installments, according to the city.

In addition to paying the fees, the Creamery will need to prove it has cleaned up the water it is pumping into the city’s treatment plant.

According to Flynn’s Feb. 26 letter, the city believes the Creamery’s wastewater pollution levels may still test higher than the levels delineated by the company’s wastewater discharge permit. The discharge permit allows the Creamery to send wastewater to the city’s Ellis Creek Water Recycling Facility for further treatment, provided the wastewater is not too dirty. The city is currently reviewing recent water-quality data provided by the Creamery, according to Flynn’s letter.

Peter did not respond to a request for comment.

Unfinished Work

Flynn’s letter, and other documents obtained by the Bohemian, indicate a flurry of work at the Creamery as the city’s March 1 deadline loomed.

On the morning of Feb. 10, a neighbor filmed a mysterious column of white smoke or steam approximately 150 feet tall emanating from the Creamery. Green said the city is still looking into the event.

A week later, on Feb. 18, city officials posted a “stop work” notice at the business after inspectors discovered crews had carried out unpermitted demolition work on the premises.

Green said on March 1 that the workers obeyed the stop work notice and that the city is currently reviewing several work permit applications.

In another step forward, workers finished removing the ammonia used in the cheese-making process from the Creamery on March 1, according to Green. The Creamery’s decision to remove the ammonia, rather than get approval to run the ammonia storage system safely, takes one item off of the Creamery’s to-do list, formally known as a Process Hazard Analysis (PHA).

State regulations require some businesses, including the Creamery, to complete a PHA once every five years based on industry best practices to ensure safety and regulatory compliance.

“Petaluma Creamery had a PHA in 2015, but never submitted proof to the City of completion of all the recommendations from the 2015 PHA,” Green told the Bohemian. Green says the Creamery hired a contractor to oversee the completion of the 2015 PHA and a subsequent 2019 PHA, but has yet to prove it has completed all of the items.

According to Flynn’s Feb. 26 letter, the Creamery claims to have completed all of the highest-priority items on its PHA. City officials are reviewing the Creamery’s work to determine whether it was done properly.

Lastly, the Creamery is required to install a new fire alarm monitoring system, using a licensed contractor, before April 1. Although the Creamery has started that work, the company it hired to install a new alarm system does not have the proper license to complete the work, according to Flynn’s letter.

Last Chance

If the Creamery’s wastewater permit is revoked, Peter may submit an application for a new one. However, the city’s review process generally takes three months, which would mean that the Creamery wouldn’t be able to operate as it currently does.

Peter could possibly continue operating without a discharge permit while Petaluma processes a new permit application, albeit using a more complicated water-disposal method. For instance, Flynn’s letter suggests that the Creamery might be able to haul wastewater to Santa Rosa’s Laguna Treatment Plant.

If the Creamery loses its wastewater permit, even temporarily, this chapter of Peter’s long-running feud with the city will likely have bad consequences for his employees.

In a sign of the city’s concern about this outcome, Flynn’s Feb. 26 letter includes information about how the Creamery’s employees can sign up for unemployment benefits.

Whatever does happen, Monday’s cashier check raises the question: If Peter had access to this kind of money all along, why didn’t he pay up earlier?

Click here to read our previous coverage of the Petaluma Creamery and Larry Peter.

Lawsuit Reveals New Allegations Against PG&E Contractor Accused of Fraud

Will Carruthers

Mar 1, 2021

Lawsuit Reveals New Allegations Against PG&E Contractor Accused of Fraud

Utility giant Pacific Gas & Electric accused two of its former employees of accepting bribes to funnel business to a waste-hauling company after the Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in California history.

One supervisor for PG&E allegedly had his driveway paved on the power company’s dime. A subordinate is accused of having received a bribe in an unorthodox property transfer of a multimillion-dollar house in a wealthy suburb of San Francisco.

PG&E alleges that in exchange for these kickbacks, the employees provided lucrative clean-up jobs to Hayward-based Bay Area Concrete Recycling.

The allegations track closely with the results of an investigation last year by ProPublica and the Bay City News Foundation, which found that PG&E had overlooked numerous warning signs when it hired Bay Area Concrete.

The company is owned and managed by the husband-wife team Yadwinder “Kevin” Singh and Preet Johal, according to local and state documents. The firm was tied to illegal dumping on federally protected wetlands and had engaged in a long conflict with regulators in the city of Hayward, where Bay Area Concrete operates a dump. Later, the news agencies revealed a suspicious real estate transaction that connected Singh and one of the PG&E employees. Singh did not respond to requests for comment.

PG&E’s filing is in response to a breach of contract lawsuit filed against the utility in October by Bay Area Concrete. Dawn Sweatt, an attorney for Bay Area Concrete, said her clients “vehemently deny” the allegations by PG&E. “The allegations are patently false and not supported by the evidence,” she said. “The litigation process will make this clear in time.”

The accused PG&E employees, Ronald Huggins Jr. and Ryan Kooistra, did not respond to requests for comment. Huggins retired, and Kooistra sold his home and moved out of state after being confronted by PG&E investigators, the counterclaim by PG&E said.

In a statement, PG&E spokesperson James Noonan called the alleged actions of Bay Area Concrete “completely unacceptable.”

“We will pursue every available action to remedy the situation and do right by those that we have the privilege to serve,” Noonan said. “As we have stated previously, PG&E will continue to hold ourselves and those that do work on our behalf to the highest ethical standards.”

The new court filings show that PG&E had a longer business relationship with Bay Area Concrete than previously known. PG&E first started disposing of waste in the company’s Hayward yard in 2016, and the business expanded to include the cleanup of PG&E yards throughout Northern California.

That business grew substantially in November 2018, when a PG&E transmission line sparked a wildfire in Butte County that destroyed more than 18,000 structures and killed 85 people. PG&E hired Bay Area Concrete to dispose of waste from hydrovac trucks — special vacuum trucks that use pressurized water for precise excavation. Bay Area Concrete opened a dump in Paradise to take the waste from the cleanup.

In its suit, Bay Area Concrete alleged that it had saved PG&E millions of dollars by doing disposal work in Paradise more cheaply than a competitor. Bay Area Concrete also said that it continued to work for PG&E as other companies fled when the utility declared bankruptcy in January 2019. At the time, PG&E owed Bay Area Concrete nearly $4 million, according to bankruptcy filings. Bay Area Concrete stuck around and opened a new dump on PG&E property in Petaluma. According to the disposal company, it racked up $14 million in unpaid invoices. Bay Area Concrete has said that PG&E’s accusations of fraud are false and the bankrupt utility was just trying to get out of paying its bills.

PG&E’s counterclaim, filed earlier this month, names Bay Area Concrete, both former PG&E employees, Singh, Johal, several of their other companies and Bay Area Concrete CEO Kevin Olivero as defendants.

PG&E alleges that Kooistra and Huggins steered PG&E contracts to Bay Area Concrete and other companies controlled by Singh and Johal. As a result, the value of Bay Area Concrete’s contracts with PG&E increased “exponentially” over a period of four years, the lawsuit said. Meanwhile, competing companies lost work with PG&E.

PG&E did not say how much the utility believes it was overcharged by Bay Area Concrete as it continues to investigate. Public records show that the company’s income increased substantially, from $16.5 million to $43.5 million, after receiving a contract to dispose of waste in connection with the Paradise fire.

Here’s how the scheme worked, according to PG&E’s allegations in court filings. Bay Area Concrete overcharged for travel time while hauling and billed PG&E for work that was never done or was unnecessary. The complaint alleges that Huggins and Kooistra approved the overbilled work in exchange for kickbacks. The pair were careful to keep Bay Area Concrete’s purchase orders low enough that Huggins would not have to seek approval from his supervisors.

To pay the bribes, Singh used a series of real estate transactions involving a 5,600-square-foot home in Saratoga to transfer money to Kooistra, PG&E alleges. The Bay City News Foundation and ProPublica first reported the exchange, which one expert described as possible money laundering.

PG&E’s court filing alleges that Regal Rose LLC, a shell company established by Singh, was also in possession of a property in Arizona when it was transferred to Kooistra.

Another shell company, CCI Management, was owned by Kooistra and acted as a subcontractor for Bay Area Concrete in Paradise. According to PG&E’s complaint, CCI did hauling work for Bay Area Concrete, which would submit invoices directly to PG&E. PG&E paid CCI $150,000 over five weeks without knowing that the company was owned by Kooistra, a violation of PG&E employment and supplier policies. PG&E alleges that Huggins was aware of Kooista’s actions and did not disclose them.

In late 2019, PG&E learned of the alleged fraud and launched an investigation. Kooistra was interviewed in January 2020 by PG&E investigators, who confronted him with evidence of his interest in companies connected to Bay Area Concrete. According to the countercomplaint, Kooistra denied any wrongdoing or having an interest in the companies, despite the interest being disclosed in public records. PG&E asked Kooistra to turn over his company-issued phone, which he did, but he refused to provide his passcode so investigators could access text messages and other data. Two days later, Kooistra quit his job, according to the complaint. He sold his home in Rocklin and moved to Arizona.

PG&E alleges that Huggins approved false invoices and concealed fraudulent charges throughout PG&E’s contract with Bay Area Concrete. In exchange, the lawsuit alleges, a company linked to Johal and Singh repaved Huggins’ driveway while they were supposed to be working on a PG&E job. When confronted by PG&E investigators, Huggins told the investigators he had paid the $16,750 bill in cash, which he happened to have on hand in his house. Four days later, he retired.

In February 2020, PG&E canceled Bay Area Concrete’s contracts and publicly announced its belief that the waste company had committed fraud.

Butte County District Attorney Michael Ramsey said last year that PG&E alerted his office to the allegations against Bay Area Concrete. Ramsey said in an email that he received no further information from PG&E but had determined that his office did not have jurisdiction in the case.

District Attorney Sends PG&E Search Warrant in Kincade Fire Investigation

Will Carruthers

Feb 25, 2021

District Attorney Sends PG&E Search Warrant in Kincade Fire Investigation

Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch’s office sent a search warrant to PG&E Wednesday seeking information as part of the county prosecutor’s ongoing investigation into the utility’s role in starting the October 2019 Kincade Fire, the company revealed in an annual financial report published today.

“On February 24, 2021, the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office sent a search warrant to the Utility through its counsel in connection with the investigation [into the Utility’s role in the Kincade Fire]. The Utility expects to produce documents and respond to other requests for information in connection with the investigation and the search warrant,” a 400-page report PG&E filed with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) states in part.

The news comes seven months after CAL FIRE released a press release on July 16, 2020, stating that “the Kincade Fire was caused by electrical transmission lines owned and operated by Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) located northeast of Geyserville. Tinder dry vegetation and strong winds combined with low humidity and warm temperatures contributed to extreme rates of fire spread.”

The Kincade Fire ignited on Oct. 23, 2019. The fire injured four first responders, burned approximately 78,000 acres, and destroyed 374 structures, including 174 homes.

The SEC report also states that PG&E entered an agreement with the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office in which PG&E agreed to waive certain statutes of limitations in the case for six months. The SEC report states that the agreement delays the expiration date of some unspecified charges from Oct. 23, 2020, to April 23, 2021.

As of Wednesday, Feb. 24, the utility and its parent company were facing 22 legal complaints related to the Kincade Fire, according the SEC report. A judge at the Sonoma County Superior Court will determine whether the cases will be considered individually or in a coordinated case, the SEC report states.

In a statement, a PG&E spokesperson said that the company has cooperated with county and state investigators following the fire.

“We received this request for information from the Sonoma County DA, are currently reviewing it, and will respond within the time requested,” the spokesperson said.

The company is conducting its own investigation into the Kincade Fire, but does not have access to the information CAL FIRE provided to the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office, the spokesperson added.

The search warrant was first reported by ABC 10, a Sacramento TV station, which reported on Wednesday that a PG&E vice president had acknowledge that the company’s equipment played a role in the Kincade Fire.

“We understand at a high level that our equipment was responsible for that fire,” Aaron Johnson, PG&E’s vice president for wildfire safety, reportedly said during a workshop hosted by the California Public Utilities Commission this week.

The Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately return a request for comment on Thursday afternoon.

Trustee for PG&E Fire Victims Goes After Former Officers, Directors

Will Carruthers

Feb 24, 2021

Trustee for PG&E Fire Victims Goes After Former Officers, Directors

A former state court judge appointed to serve as trustee for PG&E’s “fire victims” re-launched on Wednesday a massive lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court against PG&E’s former officers and directors.

The suit alleges that the defendants breached their fiduciary duties to PG&E as officers and directors and argues that they should be held liable for damages resulting from the 2017 North Bay fires and the 2018 Camp Fire.

The background to the suit is complicated.

In order to exit the Chapter 11 bankruptcy case it filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California in 2019, PG&E proposed a plan of reorganization that contained the terms by which PG&E would resolve its prodigious liability to creditors.

Among the creditors were victims of devastating wildfires in PG&E’s service territory prior to the bankruptcy.

Many of the fire victim claimants were injured by or suffered losses as a result of the fires but their claims had not been adjudicated and accordingly, the amounts they were owed by PG&E were not determined before the bankruptcy.

Given the number of fire victim claimants and the complexity of their claims, it was not feasible for there to be an individual determination of the amount of their individual claims during the bankruptcy case.

In its plan, PG&E proposed to deal with that practical problem by creating a special trust called the “Fire Victim Trust” to be used to pay the fire victims as their claims were resolved.

In order to fund the payments to these claimants, PG&E proposed to transfer substantial assets to the trust.

Among the assets used to fund the trust were approximately $6.75 billion in cash to be paid in three installments and $6.75 billion worth of common stock in the reorganized PG&E. In addition, PG&E proposed to transfer to the trust all of PG&E’s legal rights and claims against the directors and officers who served prior to the bankruptcy.

The transfer gave the trust the right to take over a “derivative” lawsuit previously filed in San Francisco Superior Court on behalf of PG&E. A derivative suit is an action filed in the name of a company by a shareholder when the company improperly fails to take legal action that is alleged to be in the company’s interest.

The derivative suit was filed in 2018 but was put on hold by the bankruptcy filing. The suit alleged that the directors and officers had breached the fiduciary duties they owed to PG&E.

The potential that the suit would generate significant funds was enhanced by the fact that PG&E, as is customary with large corporations, maintained “Directors and Officers Liability Insurance” that, under certain circumstances, would cover liabilities incurred by a company’s officers and directors during the course of their service.

In order to access those potential assets, the trust assigned all PG&E’s rights to the insurance to the trust.

PG&E’s plan was approved by the bankruptcy court on June 20, 2020 and it took effect shortly thereafter.

John K. Trotter, a retired state court judge, was appointed as the trustee for the trust. Trotter had experience with fire-related litigation, having “formulated a resolution program for the 2007 San Diego fire cases and supervised the resolution of all the victims’ claims,” according to a filing in the bankruptcy proceeding.

On Wednesday, Trotter took a key step for the fire victims by filing a 53-page amended complaint in the pending lawsuit.

The complaint asserts that 15 former directors and 10 former officers breached their duties to PG&E in connection with the group of 2017 North Bay fires and also with respect to the 2018 Camp Fire.

The North Bay fires, the complaint alleges, were 21 major wildfires that collectively burned 245,000 acres, caused the evacuation of 100,000 people, destroyed 8,900 structures and killed 44 people.

The Camp Fire burned 153,336, destroyed 18,804 structures, and caused the death of 85 people, according to Cal Fire.

The complaint charges the defendants with liability for each of the incidents, though for different reasons.

The complaint alleges that the damage from the North Bay fires could have been prevented if PG&E had “implemented a de-energization program,” in which electricity to power lines can be shut off in dry and windy conditions.

PG&E’s recent “Public Service Power Shutoffs” employ de-energization as a strategy to reduce the risk of fire in hazardous weather conditions.

With respect to the Camp Fire, the complaint alleges that the fire was caused by old and failing equipment. According to the complaint, the defendants were responsible for failing to inspect and maintain the equipment despite knowing that it could cause great damage in dangerous conditions.

The complaint states that “Defendants’ gross failure to provide oversight and intervention … has led to billions of dollars in corporate liability in excess of the entire market capitalization of the Company.”

The complaint notes that during the period that the defendants served, many were collecting substantial compensation, including bonuses. Charts embedded in the filing purport to show that Anthony F. Early, a former PG&E chairman, received more than $35 million in compensation over the years 2014 to 2016.

The complaint also faults the company and defendants for failing to “clawback” (that is, recover) excessive compensation paid to directors and officers in the past.

“The Defendants put profits before safety, which has resulted in the two separate catastrophic events which are the subject of this lawsuit.”

PG&E has been subject to ongoing monitoring in a criminal case pending in federal court in San Francisco presided over by U.S. District Judge William Alsup.

The complaint quotes Judge Alsup stating at a Feb. 3 hearing that “PG&E has been a terror, T-E-R-R-O-R, to the people of California.”