3. Procedural Background

On July 16, 2010, San Gabriel filed its general rate case (GRC) Application (A.) 10-07-019. The Division of Ratepayer Advocates (DRA), the City of El Monte, and the City of Fontana all filed timely protests to the application by August 20, 2011. The assigned Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) held a prehearing conference on September 2, 2010; representatives of the Cities of Fontana and El Monte participated in the prehearing conference via telephone. At the prehearing conference, the city of El Monte requested that a public participation hearing (PPH) be held in the El Monte area.

On October 27, 2010, then-assigned Commissioner Bohn and the assigned ALJ issued a scoping memo setting the procedural schedule for A.10-07-019. According to this schedule, evidentiary hearings were to be held December 15-22, 2010. Settlement negotiations started in early December 2010 after the service of opening and rebuttal testimony, and continued through the period originally reserved for evidentiary hearings, which were delayed at the parties' request. At a brief evidentiary hearing on January 5, 2011, the parties informed the ALJ that all but three issues raised in the application had been settled, and that the parties were willing to forego extensive evidentiary hearings, have the witnesses' prepared testimony and other exhibits received into the record with only limited cross examination related to two of the three unresolved issues, and address the remaining issues in briefs.

The ALJ directed the parties to submit any settlement agreement in the case no later than 30 days after the close of the evidentiary hearing, and San Gabriel and DRA filed their motion for adoption of the settlement agreement on January 27, 2011. On January 28, 2011, San Gabriel and DRA filed opening briefs on the remaining disputed issues; the same parties filed reply briefs on February 18, 2011. Subsequently, the City of El Monte withdrew its request for a PPH. Consultation with the Commission's Public Advisor's office showed that no parties had contacted either the Commission or San Gabriel in connection with this proceeding, and that previous PPHs held for general rate cases affecting this area had been sparsely (if at all) attended. As a result, the PPHs scheduled for this proceeding were cancelled, and the record was submitted for decision as of March 22, 2011.