DWP raises rates and then spends your money to deliver 2.4 million CFL bulbs to your home so they can light up the town
That’s right, you pay more and conserve power so City Hall can sell the rights to put up 75 or so billboards, many of them the super-offensive flashing electronic kind, all over the Convention Center creating visual blight, a distraction for motorists and a huge waste of electricity.
uses as much as 400,000 kilowatt hours per year, according to a study
by a chapter of the Green Building Council. That’s equivalent to the
annual energy use of 13 average houses.”
It gets worse. The paltry $2 million a year Phil Anschutz’s AEG is going to pay for the billboard rights goes straight into soaring city salaries and helps subsidize his LA Live and other projects that create so many low-paying service jobs
So we’re wasting electricity, giving away money and trashing the city — a triple play of bad public policy — which is why City Hall intends to create similar visual blight districts with giant flashing billboards all over town.
Phony conservation policy, Part II: DWP pays huge premium to buy wind power from Northwest to fake mayor’s claim L.A. is the “cleanest and
greenest big city in America“
You haven’t read this in the L.A. media but folks in Oregon know all about it.
Three weeks ago, the Oregonian reported the DWP cut a deal to pay $83.75 per megawatt hour to buy wind power from the Columbia River Gorge – a 20 percent premium on what Northwest utilities are paying.
The cost adds on to your bill without being called a rate increase or needing approval of city officials. It’s not like this will mean the city closes polluting coal plants. Uncontrolled development will suck up all that green power and more which is why the DWP is at war with Mojave Desert communities for the right to erect a massive new system of transmission lines.
The worst part is none of this is discussed openly in L.A. because DWP does its best to conceal the facts from the public and the media is indifferent.
Two bucks for the bulb and four bucks to distribute….DWP is a model of efficiency….and the ratepayer gets stuck for the tab. Would would it have cost to distribute a voucher for Home Depot with the regular bill?
If you don’t like electronic billboards, then I’ve got even worse news for you: by letting AEG put up electronic billboards along the freeway downtown, City Hall will almost certainly forfeit the right to prohibit such signs throughout the rest of the city.
You can get the details at the “What’s New?” page at my website. The essay is entitled “City Hall’s Billboard Double Standard: Hope You Like Vegas!”
Walter Moore
Candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles
http://WalterMooreForMayor.com
OK. So Los Angeles is going the way of Vegas with the giant lighted billboards – what about energy conservation? What about the drain on the power grids? (Remember our ancient infrastructure is desperate need of repair?) So, DWP is hiring additional staff to “police” our water usage (those infamous drought-busters introduced by King Nahai and Emperor Villaraigosa just last month) and now light-bulb distributors. Asthma sufferers can no longer purchase effective inhalers (which save lives) because of the environmentalists (CFLs or some such are bad), yet my water and power provider is monitoring the cleanliness of my walkways, green-ness of my lawn, and turning my town into a Vegas-lite. Heaven help us all. S.L.A.P. them to wake those politicians and legislators up!!!!!
Unfortunately, I cannot express my true feelings about what has happened to our city without the fear of being arrested on criminal charges; so I will simply say that I, for one, will NOT accept the light bulb gift from the morons at DWP!
In fact, I wish there was a way that we could designate a dumping site for all of those like myself who will not be using those flourescent, green light bulb monsters! Maybe the DWP can set up a return to sender, drop-off container at various locations for people like myself. One thing for sure…they will be getting my blankety-blank light bulb BACK!
Raise electric rates, tell us to conserve water and power, while buildings are lit all night, there’s a city hall-created explosion of electronic billboards and building to attract more people to live in L.A.
I give up.
I’m pulling out all the concrete and other non-waterable areas I just put in the front and back yards and planting lawns; breaking all the eco lightbulbs I got at Lowes; going back to incondescent, which I’ll leave burning day and night, while all the water taps are open full force.
I’m also going to mix and match all my trash; it will be a colorful event messing up their trash can palette.
It only pays to be a city official, not a citizen who’s trying to be a good citizen by doing the right things.
And another thing.
As I was running the water in the bathroom so I could wash down an icky, sticky, dusty shelf in a closet, I was getting pissed-offer and pissed-offer about all this business of only we LAians are supposed to obey the rules, but everyone in local government gets a pass.
I’m so pissed off, in fact, that I should have used an anonymous name like PissedOffInTheValley, but right now I really don’t give a damn who knows how angry I am.
As a devotee of the “California Rolling Stop” rule, I’ve decided to stop rolling out my blue can except for once a month when it’s full of newspapers and cardboard.
You see, no one bothers to steal paper out of the blue cans; they have no street or black market value.
I could say I’m turning blue with anger and resentment over sorting trash when no one else seems to, not even my own family members, no matter how many time I tell them ‘that doesn’t go in that can.’
I’m sick of listening for the blue can truck to come rumbling up the street, and racing out with the blue can at the last minute, all in an effort to keep the bag lady who roves the streets from rifling through my blue trash and making a mess that I have to clean up.
I’m sick of having that blue can crammed so full every week that there’s always hold-over trash for the next week. I rarely get caught up.
And don’t tell me to get a bigger trash blue can, the one I have is the next to the biggest and hard enough to wrassle down the driveway.
Am I worried that the trash police are going to ‘git’ me? No. Unless they read this, they don’t know what I’m planning to do, or if I really intend to go through with it.
Besides, I have an unlisted address to go with my unlisted phone number, and one big dog with very big teeth.
Anyone else hording incandescent light bulbs?
I started about 6 months ago, and I am now the proud horder of around 1000 incandescent bulbs! I won’t stop until I reach my goal of around 5000!!! I figure that should last at least 50 more years!
Now, all I have to worry about is the light bulb police coming around to check my lamps! Or the light bulb thieves robbing my stash!
Anon. 8:54 a.m.
As long as you don’t stash your cash of bulbs in the blue trash, you’ll be okay.