Uca Letter

601 South Figueroa Street Suite 2500 Los Angeles, CA 90017-5704 213.623.9300 213.623.9924 fax www.sonnenschein.com

Christopher E. Prince 213.892.5049 [email protected]

February 19, 2009 VIA E-MAIL

California Public Utilities Commission 505 Van Ness Avenue San Francisco, California 94102 Re:

A.06-12-005 and associated applications; Revised Alternate Decision of Commissioner Chong

Dear Commissioners: United Community Associations, Inc. joins in the Los Angeles Unified School District’s request for an all parties meeting. UCA shares the LAUSD’s concern about the direction that this proceeding has taken. As a threshold matter, the entire evidentiary process was, in our view, tainted by serious discovery-related misconduct on the part of Expo (specifically, Expo’s secret withholding of documents based on undisclosed and frivolous assertions of privilege). This misconduct was compounded when UCA was denied the opportunity to conduct any pre-hearing discovery beyond written document requests and was further denied the opportunity to review critical documents that were improperly withheld. Although the evidentiary hearing was flawed in that respect, it did conform to certain basic standards of fairness: all parties had the opportunity to be heard on the issues, and all parties had the opportunity to hear the arguments presented to the decisionmakers. Since the Assigned Commissioner issued his proposed decision, however, both the appearance and reality of fairness have all but disappeared: Expo has made ex parte contact with a Commissioner without giving the appropriate 3day advance notice to all parties; UCA’s requests for “equal time” with Commissioners who have granted requests for ex parte communication have been ignored; and An Alternate Decision was issued and revised apparently based on evidence that was excluded from the evidentiary hearing, thus violating Public Utilities Code Section 1701(3)(e). Beyond the outright violations of CPUC rules and governing statutes, an air of politics has descended over this proceeding. The sheer number of ex parte contacts by Expo is highly 30333843

Brussels

Charlotte San Francisco

Chicago Short Hills, N.J.

Dallas

Kansas City

Silicon Valley

Los Angeles

Washington, D.C.

New York West Palm Beach

Phoenix Zurich

St. Louis

California Public Utilities Commission February 19, 2009 Page 2

unusual as are the significant changes to both the proposed and alternate decisions. Given that this decision is not even the final word on these applications, the level and amount of maneuvering is both perplexing and troubling. UCA urges the Commission to move this process back out into the open. Granting LAUSD’s request for an all parties’ meeting would be a good first step in that direction. Sincerely,

Christopher E. Prince CVP/jam

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