Well the second part hardly follows from the first part. PG&E provides private capital for investments the State may not be willing or able to provide. PG&E provides the expertise in building and maintaining a power grid, and manages the day to day operations. For that they get a reasonable margin of profit.
But the State sets prices, and decides what is a “prudent investment” that can be recovered from rate payers. As a result, it is the State that is responsible for the trade off between keeping retail rates low and investing in infrastructure upgrades such as enhanced fire safety. The State is also responsible for setting big picture policy goals, and has done so for example by imposing requirements with respect to purchasing renewable energy. (Which I think are a good thing by the way.) When the State is the one making those decisions, then yes, it should be held accountable.
As to publicly operated utilities—they have the same problem, because their rates are regulated by agencies like the CPUC. Underinvestment in utility infrastructure is a chronic investment around the country, and there seems to be no difference between public and investor owned utilities in that regard. The problem is utility boards.
If you want to blame the state for PG&E management decisions, you are essentially saying that PG&E’s shareholder ownership and its own management are irrelevant, in which case they are at best a superfluous expense that should be avoided by making PG&E’s functions the domain of a publicly-operated utility.