PUBLIC OWNERSHIP IS POWER ANSWER.

Byline: Ralph E. Shaffer Local View

AS Sacramento saddles taxpayers with a staggering multibillion-dollar debt in a doomed attempt to deal with the catastrophic power crisis facing California, the governor continues to ignore the bipartisan solution embraced by progressive Republicans and Democrats in Los Angeles nearly a century ago: government ownership and operation of utilities.

Unfortunately, the governor is not alone. Today most Republican and Democratic legislators have turned their backs on public ownership, closing the door to the only reasonable long-range solution to the power crunch.

Conservative ideologues who make Republican policy today blame the crisis on California's failure to deregulate the power industry completely in 1996. They have become advocates for greedy privateers, so completely dedicated to the worship of profit that they would turn over all government enterprises, from auditoriums to zoos, to Big Brother entrepreneurs. They believe only billionaires know what is best for the people, and only corporations can provide cures for society's problems. Government ownership is reviled as socialism.

The Democratic Party is likewise unwilling to follow the path that more liberal party ancestors welcomed in earlier crises.

Government ownership is as unacceptable to Democratic politicians as it is to most Republicans. They have abandoned the spirit of Franklin Roosevelt and kowtow to the almighty campaign dollar offered by power generators and distributors.

By contrast, an earlier generation of Republicans and Democrats recognized that private enterprise could not be trusted to dispense all that the public needs. Those facets of the economy upon which every other activity depended - water and power - were not to be placed in the hands of for-profit businessmen who could cut off service at any time.

Late 19th century Los Angeles suffered at the hands of an inept electricity monopoly that turned off the power when it wasn't profitable to supply it. Residents didn't call such outages rolling blackouts because they occurred citywide and were a regular event.

An equally inefficient water company drew the wrath of Angelenos whose faucets dripped black slime, if they ran at all, and at other times provided a stream that wouldn't extinguish the flame of a good-size match.

Republicans led the movement to end private ownership of essential utilities. They knew from experience that the local economy depended upon a steady supply of water and power at a reasonable rate, available at all times regardless of its profitability. Consumers and the business community would both benefit.

Understanding that, the city's most prominent leaders - businessmen, journalists, professionals, union men - joined in a successful effort to evict the private monopolies that then ran the utilities.

Under Republican leadership, they pushed through the necessary bond issues to buy out the utilities and to create the city's own Department of Water and Power, providing householder and business alike with reliable, cheap and efficient service that private enterprise had been unable to deliver.

A century later that ``socialistic'' utility stands as a shining polestar pointing to a similar solution to the power problems of 21stcentury California.

Edison International and Pacific Gas and Electric should be allowed to go quietly into bankruptcy. The governor, who has mysteriously found the authority to spend money hand over fist bailing out the two powerful utilities - whose investors also happen to be big donors to the state's politicians - should move to ``nationalize'' the entire industry.

It will be far cheaper for taxpayers and ratepayers to purchase California's entire power infrastructure by condemnation than it will be to continue half-hearted and misguided efforts to shore up a failed system.

Two months ago, before the governor's meddling efforts to avert bankruptcy declarations by the major utilities, Edison stock fell to $7. With roughly 400 million shares, the entire company was valued by Wall Street at less than $3 billion. PG&E was worth about the same. Davis' bailout efforts doubled the value of each company's stock. Edison rocketed to $15, at least temporarily.

Yet the governor wants to spend about as much as both corporations were worth when on the verge of bankruptcy for an interest in the statewide power grid. That is absolute madness.

The time has come for Californians to realize that the anti-government ideology that has been drummed into their heads for half a century, with Cold War, anti-communist rhetoric at its heart, ought to be sent to the trash heap.

Our Angeleno ancestors, who were hardly socialists, knew a good thing when they saw it.