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SAN FRANCISCO — Ballot measures that would launch a municipal utility to replace Pacific Gas and Electric Co. as the city’s power provider remained virtually deadlocked Thursday, though a major credit-rating agency already was predicting “decades” of legal battles ahead between the utility and its challengers. 

Thousands of absentee and provisional ballots remained uncounted. 

Some ballots that were mailed in were taken to an auditorium near city hall as part of a plan to protect against any potential anthrax threats. No threats were received, but Department of Elections Director Tammy Haygood said the decision had been made “some time ago.” 

Board of Supervisors President Tom Ammiano and both campaigns still were searching for answers as to why some absentee ballots remained unguarded by law enforcement on Election Night, and why elections officials still had not finished counting. 

“I don’t know why they can’t just count them in overtime and get this over with, because there’s such an emotional and political investment,” Ammiano said. “There’s the tarnish of votes being moved to another building, so there’s a lot of anxiety and irritability over this issue.” 

At stake is the opportunity to create a municipal power agency that would buy PG&E’s transmission lines and power plants necessary for providing San Francisco with electricity, and to take over the utility’s 360,000 customers on its hometown turf. 

The bankrupt utility’s parent company spent more than $1 million trying to defeat Proposition F, which would expand the city’s public utilities commission into a department of water and power similar to Los Angeles DWP, and Measure I, which would create an independent municipal utility district similar to Sacramento MUD. 

Local interest in public power grew during the state’s power crisis, as LADWP and SMUD both managed to charge their customers up to 30 percent less for electricity than PG&E. 

Both measures would issue millions of dollars of bonds to buy any electricity they can’t generate, pay workers, buy the infrastructure and pay the cost of the expected legal battle with PG&E. 

New figures released Thursday by the San Francisco Department of Elections showed Proposition F leading by just 831 votes, and Measure I trailing by 2,958 votes, with all precincts reporting — but some absentee and provisional ballots still to be counted. 

Regardless of which way the votes eventually fall, California’s largest utility and its supporters said public power lacked an overwhelming mandate from voters, unlike a solar power measure that attracted 73 percent of voters. 

“With the apparent failure of the MUD, a very close vote on Proposition F and very low voter turnout, there is no strong sentiment in favor of municipalization in San Francisco,” PG&E said in a written statement. 

But Standard and Poor’s, a major credit rating agency, issued a statement Thursday morning presuming F would pass. S&P predicted a “protracted fight in the court system” would stall the city from launching its municipal utility. 

“Legal challenges against the vote may continue for decades” due to fears the absentee votes may have been tampered with, the release said. 

The utility denied a legal battle was already in the works Thursday. 

“It’s premature at this time to speculate,” said Jennifer Ramp, a PG&E spokeswoman, acknowleding the utility spent more than two decades fighting the creation of Sacramento’s MUD more than 50 years ago. 

Though backers of F&I still hope the uncounted votes swing toward public power, they reluctantly are looking at backup plans, Ammiano said. 

The Board of Supervisors also could implement a municipal utility by working with Mayor Willie Brown and the city’s Public Utilities Commission, though voters would lose the chance to elect the board that would run the utility. They instead would be appointed by the mayor. 

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On the Net: 

http://www.pge.com 

http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/elections