The vice mayor of fire-torn Paradise, California, said Wednesday that an advocacy group funded by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. “duped” him into appearing in a television spot advocating for state lawmakers to pass the Newsom administration’s wildfire liability proposal.
Steve “Woody” Culleton, a longtime Paradise leader whose home was destroyed in the 2018 Camp Fire, said a PG&E executive working with the Wildfire Victims First Coalition approached him last year to film an advertisement calling for victims to be paid first after fires. The ad has aired in the Sacramento media market in recent weeks as state lawmakers rush to pass a liability plan before their session ends on Aug. 31.
But Culleton said the coalition never told him that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal would cap the amount PG&E and other investor-owned utilities must pay out after their equipment causes wildfires — a provision that opponents have cast as a corporate bailout.
“I got conned into doing this thing a year ago,” Culleton told POLITICO. “You just need to know that I don’t really support this. If you saw that [TV ad], I was duped.”
