At Tuesday's City Council meeting, Councilmember Tony Daysog declared balloons "part of the fun of life" as he voted against a potential ordinance to phase out the sale of conductive metal balloons in Alameda.

This Saturday evening, the SF Chronicle reported JUST IN: Metallic balloons trigger widespread power outage in East Bay.

More than 5,300 households lost power in San Leandro. It's a chilly night, with the temperature in the 40s, so not a pleasant time to be sitting in a dark house for a number of hours.

According to the Coalition for Responsible Celebration (the industry group that coordinated letters and public comments at Tuesday night's council meeting in Alameda) the problem isn't stores that sell bunches of balloons that can short circuit entire neighborhoods' electrical systems — the problem is people who don't celebrate responsibly.

Balloons and major power outages aside, that vote was one of many recent demonstrations of a pattern. Whereas last year this blog wrote a post titled Tony Daysog is running for mayor in two years... by trying to do as little as possible today, the councilmember has changed his apparent strategy in recent months. Instead of recusing from as many votes as possible, he now appears to pick his vote on many agenda items to maximize the contrast with his colleagues on the dais. In the case of this potential ordinance, he even prepared his own slide deck to counter staff's slide deck.

I get that regulating consumer goods is a touchy topic. (Trying to drink a smoothie at Jamba Juice with a compostable straw after it's sat there more than a minute will radicalize you against this entire topic!) Then again, there are real costs to power outages to households, health, businesses, and utilities — such as Alameda's city-owned electrical network. According to AMP staff:

When a mylar balloon contacts power lines, its metallic coating can create a short circuit, causing a surge of electricity. This surge triggers protective devices, such as circuit breakers or fuses (located in substations like Cartwright), to activate and temporarily cut off power to prevent equipment damage. The estimated cost for labor and equipment replacement in these events is at least $25,000.

That is, each time a metallic coated balloon — for which a member of the Coalition for Responsible Celebration probably earns a couple dollars of profit — contacts and shorts one of the city's power lines, we pay out at least $25,000.

How should competing interests be balanced? Would a city-level ban on these types of conductive metal balloons be effective? Would it be a specific hardship to certain established small businesses in town? To be honest, I'm not entirely sure... But I do know that I'm turned off by industry trade groups with passive-aggressive names like the "Coalition for Responsible Celebration." And I do know that Councilmember Daysog displays too much confidence by preparing a slide deck of his own that includes numerical calculations with six digits of precision. Now that he's actually voting on agenda items, the only consistent through-line is who he's positioning himself against — not what, if anything, he's for as an elected leader.

The Chronicle currently reports that power has been partially restored for some of the affected households in San Leandro: 3,500 households still remain without electricity at the 5-hour mark. They're estimated to get their power back in 6 more hours.