BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- The Board of Supervisors will ask voters this November whether the county should stick with PG&E or find an alternative.

The question to voters comes after a hearing last week where a PG&E spokesman said Kern County customers are paying unfairly higher rates.

PG&E's Senior Vice President for Regulatory Relations addressed those comments from last week as he was grilled by supervisors about why some Kern County residents pay so much for electricity.

"You cannot guarantee me today, that a Kern County rate payer in tier three, four or five is not subsidizing a rate payer in one, or two in the Bay Area," Supervisor Michael Rubio said during the hearing. Tom Bottorff, the Senior VP, responded by saying "that's right because rates aren't set based on geographic distinctions."

Bottorff clarified PG&E spokesman Ken Cooper's comments from last week at the board, by saying those in the higher tiers of usage and payments in Kern County subsidize those in tiers one, two and the care program, not subsidize cooler climates.

Bottorff outlined three areas where PG&E is working to lower high tier customer's rates, which mostly pleased the group, KernTax, that brought up the issue in the first place.

"I really don't like the June rate," Michael Turnipseed, the president of the Kern County Taxpayer's Assoc., "but something is better than nothing. But they get to the same place the second year, so I can support where they're going."

The four supervisors present like that direction, but the issue of Proposition 16, which if passed would require a two-thirds vote for municipalities to seek alternative ways of providing energy, kept the board on track to ask voters whether the county should indeed seek to leave PG&E's service.

"I cannot applaud, nor can I reconcile the inconsistency of what you're trying to do with the proposition versus your other efforts, they're irreconcilable," Supervisor Jon McQuiston said during the hearing.

But Supervisor Ray Watson felt holding an election was pointless and the $126,000 price tag too high.

"There is no doubt that the public is 100-percent behind us, so that's not a question, the question is how hard do we need to push PG&E?" Watson said.

Watson believes the threat of seeking an alternative has worked, but still approved a November vote on the question anyway, a move PG&E says is unnecessary.

"I think the best alternative is to stay with PG&E," Bottorf said after the hearing.

Originally the board was looking at a June vote for the question, but November allows more time for staff to look at options and their costs as well as time to pull it off the ballot. Supervisor Mike Maggard suggested as an alternative looking to switch the Bakersfield area to Southern California Edison from PG&E.