Days
before he stepped down as the state’s top utility regulator, Michael
Peevey called an assistant dean at his alma mater, the University of
California, Berkeley, to say that a recognition dinner was being held in
his honor, and net proceeds would benefit the Goldman School of Public
Policy. “Mike asks that you
join the host committee,” assistant dean Annette Doornbos wrote to her
boss, Dean Henry Brady, on Dec. 15. “He would like to know at your
earliest convenience.”
The
request appears on the first of 327 pages of emails to and from
university officials related to the $250-a-plate tribute dinner that was
held Feb. 12 at the Julia Morgan Ballroom in San Francisco. The
records show the school struggled with how to react to a barrage of
criticism from alumni and supporters, who urged Brady to reject the
donations as a public-corruption investigation encircled the utilities
commission in general and Peevey specifically.
The
university’s emails were obtained by the San Diego advocacy group
Citizens Oversight, which sued the school earlier this month after
officials failed to release documents in response to several requests
under the California Public Records Act. They
show Brady and others defending their decision to honor Peevey, who not
only graduated from the institution but was an important donor and
longtime advisory board member...
[As blog readers will know, in the end the School had to turn down the money.]
Anyway, that's how it happened:
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