Reminder to PG&E after gunshots - fix the fence

Former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos is leading the battle to stop the waterfront arena plan. Former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos is leading the battle to stop the waterfront arena plan. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Reminder to PG&E after gunshots - fix the fence 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Whether it was a terrorist attack or just well-planned vandalism, the sniper assault in April on a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. substation in south San Jose pointed up a simple truth - if you can see it, you can shoot it.

Jon Wellinghoff, who was chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission when someone shot up transformers at the Metcalf substation with a high-powered rifle, set off a firestorm last week when he called it "the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred" in the United States.

The FBI, which is in charge of the investigation, said it wasn't terrorism. It has made no arrests and won't say if it has any suspects.

Whether the attack was the work of al Qaeda, someone with a grudge against PG&E or a sharpshooter on a joy run, Wellinghoff says there is something the utility could do to prevent a repeat attack.

"Make the fences around these substations, which are now chain-link fences, opaque so you couldn't see through them and shoot through them from 1,000 yards," he told CBS News.

Ten months after an attack that caused $15.4 million in damage, however, the substation still has a see-through chain-link fence.

After we inquired about the fencing, PG&E spokesman Brian Swanson called back to say that a change was in the works.

"Metcalf and other facilities will have opaque fencing. We are in the engineering and permitting phase and it should happen in the near future," Swanson said.

He said PG&E has also beefed up its camera surveillance at Metcalf, brought on a guard and cut back on the vegetation around the substation "to eliminate potential hiding places."

Funny what a little press will do.

A real deal: Mayor Ed Lee's idea of tearing down Interstate 280 from Potrero Hill to its twin touchdowns near the ballpark and Sixth Street to make room for development is getting more real by the day.

The city - armed with a grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission - is launching a $1.45 million study into demolishing the freeway and shrinking the Caltrain rail yard at Fourth and King streets.

The study will also look into how to underground a possible high-speed rail line into downtown.

The freeway would be replaced by a street-level boulevard akin to what was built after the Embarcadero Freeway was knocked down.

And like the Embarcadero knockdown, cutting I-280 short could open up hundreds of millions of dollars of land for development - which appears to be the real push behind the idea.

Jump ball: The "No Wall on the Waterfront" initiative to require voter approval for high-rises - or a Golden State Warriors arena - on port property has easily qualified for the June ballot after supporters collected more than 21,000 signatures in just three weeks.

"Think of it as San Francisco's Arab Spring," said former Mayor Art Agnos, one of the organizers of the campaign against building an arena at Piers 30-32.

"Even the professional signature gatherers (who were paid $3 a name) said it was the easiest work they had ever done," Agnos said.

If Agnos is looking to get a rise out of Mayor Ed Lee, it won't happen. After voters resoundingly defeated the 8 Washington condos across from the Ferry Building, Lee said he was in favor of letting the people have their say.

The initiative, however, did catch the attention of Warriors co-owner Joe Lacob, who has invited Agnos for a sit-down.

Google gold: One person who will be sad to see the Google barge go is Mayor Ed Lee, whose cash-strapped Treasure Island Authority was getting thousands of dollars a month in rent from the tech giant.

The city's month-to-month lease agreement with Google is confidential, but sources close to the deal tell us the company began paying $92,000 a month in November 2012 for the use of the former naval hangar where the barge was being worked on.

In July 2013, Google's rent dropped to $79,000. Then this month, it dropped to $65,000 a month.

Total so far: $850,000 and counting.

It came in handy for an island authority that's forever dealing with crumbling infrastructure.

Alas, neither Google nor the city nor the authority got the needed permits for the barge work - so now the Bay Area Conservation and Development Commission, which oversees the bay, has ordered the vessel to go move.

At this point, no one is sure where it is going - but with it goes the rent.

Fun raiser: As fundraiser venues go, the one the other night for state Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, had to be one of the strangest.

The event was organized by the Doctors Company, a medical malpractice insurance outfit, and Californians Allied for Patient Protection, the group fighting a planned November ballot measure that would lift the financial caps in medical malpractice cases.

The setting: the Grand Cuesta Sub-Acute and Rehabilitation Center, a Mountain View nursing home.

Hill said fundraiser or no, he'll probably oppose any effort to raise the medical malpractice caps this year.