EDITOR'S NOTE: Join the Political Ad Truth Squad. It's nearly election day and it's getting real, news developments, charges and ads and ads and ads. Post your comments on the messages you're seeing on TV and in the mail and email lto ron@ronkayela.com links to videos and other material that you see as defining the closing days of the campaign.


The blitz is on -- for an election nobody was supposed to care about.

The City Hall political machine was supposed to have their way with us. But in the final week of the election that nobody was supposed to care, we find the shoo-in insiders campaigning for their lives or at least their political careers.

The mayor himself who could wind up with sunburn from Measure B is racing around town in a bus trying to drum up votes so he doesn't wind up with less than 60 percent of vote when he's challenged only by the likes of Walter Moore, Zuma Dogg and David Hernandez.

Wendy Greuel is so afraid she might lose to city watchdog Nick Patsaouras that she just gave her campaign $110,000 of her own money and compromised her integrity and ability to actually do the job of City Controller by taking $200,000 from the IBEW. You might remember Greuel sponsored Measure B, championed it through City Council at breakneck speed without knowing anything about it except that it gave the IBEW a monopoly on all the jobs of a $3 billion solar program.

And when you talk about desperate, there's nobody like Jack Weiss. Here's a guy who never actually gets anything done and annoys even the people who like him and he's spending day and night dialing for campaign dollars so he can fill our TV screens and mailboxes with attack ads aimed at Michael Amerian, an assistant City Attorney who Weiss wants to boss around all day when he's formally crowned the City Attorney.

Why Amerian? Because Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich is going to come in first and Amerian is running ahead of Weiss, which would leave him out of the runoff and leave the mayor and police chief without anyone to uncork and pour fine bottles of wine for them.

Who would have thought when back room deals were being cut, when environmental groups were being seduced with cheap promises and business and labor intimidated, that the dominant issue in the election nobody was supposed to care about would be solar energy, the one thing we can all agree on?

The Big Mistake in a campaign that is nothing but one Big Lie after another was the decision to sue the Solar 8 over the No on Measure B ballot argument.

It brought hundreds of community activists together like never before. City Attorney candidate Noel Weiss rode to the rescue of the Solar 8 and the judge laughed the big shots out of court, saying Measure B was so vague and contradictory and the process so flawed you could say just about anything you wanted about it and not be lying or misleading.

Their intimidation gave us a focus and the more we learned about Measure B, the more we understood how it is nothing but a blank check for higher rates and dirty deals, nothing but pie-in-the-sky promises from the DWP, IBEW and City Hall that have failed to deliver on one promise after another for clean energy and good jobs.

Now business and labor and every community group in the city that has taken a stand are opposed to Measure B.

This is the election nobody was supposed to care about. If you don't care,  you get what you deserve. If you do care, then this is the election where you can make a difference.

Protest the re-election of Antonio Villaraigosa by voting for any other candidate.

Deny Jack Weiss a place in the runoff for City Attorney.

Elect Patsaouras who has the courage, the experience and the passion to live up to the tradition of public service that Controller Laura Chick has established.

And understand this even if you disagree with me on everything else: Defeat Measure B and you change the entire political dynamic of LA. You will open the doors and windows of City Hall to transparency, you will give the people a seat at the table of power, you will guarantee that political games and personal agendas take a back seat to the public interest.

Those are new rules of the game articulated by the President of the United States. Those are our rights as Americans.

Do you care enough to vote?

The word leaking out of City Hall is that poor Jack Weiss has awakened from his long smug slumber and is having a panic attack at the very real possibility of finishing out of the money in the City  Attorney's race.

Nobody inside the leaky City Hall political machine actually likes or respects Jackie Boy -- except maybe Chief Bratton who enjoys sending him out for coffee and other errands -- so the news that Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich and Michael Amerian might make the May runoff and not Jack is getting more laughs than tears.

Tears are, however, being shed over the prospects that Measure B -- the ultimate pay-to-play money machine -- will fail.

Let me repeat that a little louder: MEASURE B IS NOW A TOSSUP, TOO CLOSE TO CALL, 50-50!

That's right, your vote on Tuesday could change the whole political dynamic in LA, send City Hall the message that the people are fed up with failure and self-service and will no longer tolerate a government of, by and for special interests.

Make no mistake: Clean energy and green jobs is something that has support from everyone -- something that everyone has wanted for a decade or longer. But Measure B is on the verge of being rejected by a majority of voters on Tuesday because it is so bad, because it doesn't do anything to create clean energy or green jobs as it claims. Because we want clean government, too.

Millions of dollars being spent to con the public are being beaten by a grassroots citizens campaign that has nothing but the truth on its side and the energy of hundreds of community activists who care about the future of LA when all their elected officials care about is themselves and the special interests that keep them in office as the nation's highest paid municipal officials in America.

Virtually everyone who has listened to both sides of the Measure B debate or read what both sides of the debate have to say have come to the same conclusion: Measure B is a fraud.

That's the conclusion reached by the LA TImes, Daily News and the Breeze; by labor organizations like the Carpenters Union and Laborers Union; business groups like the LA Chamber, Apartment Owners association, United Chambers of the Valley, VICA, by every homeowner and resident group and  Neighborhood Council and NC coalition that put it to a vote, which is most of them.

There's a lot reasons why Controller Laura Chick says Measure B "stinks."

It's a boondoggle that was put together in back room deals. Critical information was kept secret from the City Council and the public. It was ramrodded through the council in three weeks without any meaningful debate, without ever being brought before Neighborhood Councils or the DWP Commission as required by the City Charter. The DWP management has done no analysis, planning or studies of its feasibility, costs or financing.

As if those are not enough reasons to vote against Measure B, try this: It's a Charter Amendment that undermines every safeguard against graft and waste with the exception of annual unfunded audits by the City Controller and oversight by a hand-picked commission appointed by the mayor and council who can't wait to get their hands on the billions of dollars in public money Measure B would authorize.

The trouble with that oversight is if Wendy Greuel beats NIck Patsaouras for City Controller, the watchdog will be a lapdog. Greuel is an author of Measure B and if she wins she will owe her election to the IBEW, the union that represents 95 percent of DWP workers, and has lavished a fortune on her campaign.

Brian D'Arcy, the all-powerful head of the IBEW, actually wrote Measure B after doing everything in his power to block every attempt to bring solar energy to LA for the last decade.

But as the special interests who are funding the Yes campaign like to argue: Solar power is an idea whose time has come. Actually, it's long past that time but who's quibbling.

So D'Arcy's play is to get a DWP monopoly on the $3.6 billion Measure B so only his union gets the jobs and to have a shot at getting any other jobs that might flow out of the other solar programs the DWP has suddenly slapped together to try to get this passed.

We can do so much better than Measure B.

Environmentalists, the solar industry, experts in technology and finance, the DWP, the public and others could sit down on March 4 and develop a plan that gets us clean energy faster and cheaper than Measure B and actually brings solar manufacturing and research facilities to our region.

The choice is clear. The outcome depends on who shows up to vote. There's no excuses in this election. You can put Jack Weiss on the scrap heap of the city's political history. You can trash Measure B and join the rest of the world by joining the clean energy movement. You can even keep Wendy Greuel in her place on the City Council and put someone into the Controller's office who will carry on the tradition of Laura Chick.

Los Angeles on $300,000 a year

Why next week's City Council "coronation" will cost you far more than money

Those are the headlines on
Patrick Range McDonald's
devastating story in the LA
Weekly about what the princes and princesses who serve on the City Council are really paid in salary and perks -- and how little they do to earn it.

Filled with telling detail, McDonald condemns "the council's double standards for itself, its frequent hypocrisy and its continual self-congratulations for performing "services" and official favors that subvert municipal processes..."

Here's the heart of the story:

"With the highest city council salaries in the nation, at $178,789 per year, Los Angeles City Council is possibly the highest-paid elected city body on the planet. Its pay far outstrips that of councils in costlier New York City, whose members earn a mere $112,500, and San Francisco, whose members earn $95,868. Los Angeles council members earn about 70 percent more than the piddling pay of the Chicago City Council, at $110,556...

"The L.A. City Council salaries are not just overinflated in an era of belt-tightening. They are only a hair below the salaries of Congress, and are higher than those of federal judges. They amount to a staggering 400 percent of Los Angeles' median household income of $46,000 -- and no other city council, in cities poor or rich, comes even close to that troubling disparity between public servant and the public.

"Each council member enjoys a free car, maintenance and gas costing $6,000 to $15,000 annually (Garcetti's electric-car lease costs taxpayers $3,900 but saves on fuel); each gets a petty-cash fund of $5,000; and each receives a dubious, $100,000, yearly taxpayer-financed slush fund, which amounts to walking-around money that they can dole out to anyone -- family members or gangbangers if they choose -- as long as they don't spend it on religious proselytizing or political races."

Editor's Note: Here's the full LA Times editorial on Measure B.

The proposed charter amendment and ordinance proposition is less about solar energy than it is a grab for political power.

Set aside, for a moment, the secretive and rushed process to get the March 3 solar power charter amendment commonly known as Measure B on the ballot, the disingenuous campaign for it and the outrageous attempts to make voters equate this measure with the city's entire solar energy program. The question The Times sought to answer in the weeks it has examined the measure was whether, if passed, it would leave Los Angeles and its residents better off than they would be without it.

We conclude that it would not, and that it would in fact undermine both the city's solar energy efforts and its political oversight and accountability. The Times urges a no vote on Measure B.

Let's start with some basics. First, despite false claims you'll read in ballot arguments and see on the city's cable channel, the solar power to be created under the program would not hasten the shutdown of any coal plant or otherwise replace the fossil fuel burning that generates the city's electric power. It would generate power only when the sun is shining, and although there is nothing wrong with that, that "peaking power" would supplement, but could never replace, the noxious coal burning that has long made the city's energy so inexpensive. Department of Water and Power officials acknowledge that.

Second, the warring "studies" on the cost to ratepayers are inconclusive, no matter how the campaigns try to spin them. Sunshine is free, but converting it to usable electricity is not. DWP and union officials acknowledge that solar power will likely never be as cheap as coal is today. But it's equally true that the cost of burning coal will soon rise to reflect its effect on the environment. The most straightforward statement on costs comes in the financial impact statement in your ballot, which notes that the DWP would draft (and the City Council would approve or modify) an implementation plan, and until then, "the specific costs and financial benefits of the program cannot be determined."

And third: Much of what Measure B promises to deliver is good; The Times wants it, and Los Angeles needs it. A program to produce at least 400 megawatts of power from the sunshinethat beats down on the city's rooftops makes perfect sense, and the DWP should get moving on such a program. There's also nothing wrong with trying to make the city the capital of solar power generation and manufacturing, or with trying to create new solar-related jobs.

Editor's Note: Listen to the Measure B today on KPCC's Air Talk with Larry Mantle as Councilman Bill Rosendahl and I debate how to get solar energy in L.A. at the best price in the fastest time. Click on Air Talk or click here (airtalk.mp3 ).

We're in the final days of a long political campaign that has seen community activists from Neighborhood Councils, residents groups, business and labor come together to try to defeat Measure B so we can finally get a solar energy -- and not more hot air from City Hall and the DWP.

Even the mayor's own polls show us within striking distance of pulling off a stunning upset to stop a phony proposal that is nothing more than a blank check to the people who have failed to deliver on promise after promise to deliver green energy and good jobs to Los Angeles.

They know their campaign is in trouble against all odds since there is nearly 100 percent support for solar energy but nearly everyone who actually listens to a discussion of their pie-in-the-sky promises and hears what's wrong with Measure B as process and policy comes to the same conclusion: Let's go back to the drawing boards and come up with a better plan than the drawn up in back room deals by insiders who only want to serve their own interests.

Measure B has become the hot button issue of this campaign because it is so seriously flawed that its supporters have only one argument: Solar energy at any price.

The truth is the solar industry, unions, business, the community and everyone else with a stake in the city's future could come up with a better clean energy program well before the June 3 deadline the DWP has if Measure B passes to actually develop the plan it should have developed years ago.

Larry Mantle on KPCC's Air Talk revisited the Measure B debate today inviting Brian D'Arcy who heads the DWP's union, the IBEW, but he backed out. Councilman Bill Rosendahl who ardently supported Measure B, then decided he wasn't sure and then decided he was for it again, took his place and discussed the issue with me but hung up early for what he said was important business in the City Council chamber. Listen to the show here (airtalk.mp3).

And here's the Top 10 Reasons to Vote NO on Measure B from the VoteNoMeasureB website:

10) The success of Measure B depends on tax credits and depreciation schemes that were "listed" by the IRS on October of '08. In other words, the plan's success depends on "tax shelters" that are hardly attractive to billion dollar investors.

9) The number of DWP customers having their utilities disconnected for failure to pay is at an all-time high. These are tough times economically for everybody. Can we afford rate increases?

8) The DWP commissioned the Huron report, (favorable to Measure B) while dismissing the PA Consulting report (unfavorable to Measure B) all the while ignoring their own DWP report that supports the unfavorable findings of the PA Consulting report.

7) Suggestions that a multi-billion dollar program can be implemented with only a $1 a month impact on the average customer requires us to accept that the $20 million a year would somehow service the debt. This is simply bad math.

6) The DWP's most recent hiring authorization resulted in 1000 jobs of which 76% remain unfilled. If the DWP has so many open spots, why the suggestion that Measure B is necessary for the creation of good jobs? It appears they have difficulty filling the current openings.

5) With 5 other solar-certified unions standing by and ready to work, the exclusive relationship with one union hardly seems like the most cost effective approach to maintaining a competitive labor expense for the proposed plan.

4) Suggestions by DWP management that Measure B is necessary in order to lock in the plan through transitions in City leadership are contradicted by reality. Measure B actually allows the City Council to make revisions to the plan without coming back to the people of Los Angeles. City Charter be damned!

3) Measure B does absolutely nothing to replace any of the fossil fuel power generation plants now operating and any claims that Measure B will reduce the air pollution in Los Angeles are simply false.

2) 33 Neighborhood Councils stand in opposition to Measure B and are joined by the LA County Republicans, the Progressive Democrats, Chambers of Commerce, Unions, City Leadership and Political Candidates and our City's Watchdog, Controller Laura Chick who says "I will be voting NO on Measure B, because I think the entire process of how it ended up on the ballot stinks. I don't think it's been done in an open and understandable, much less thoughtful, way."

1) Measure B is a 3 Billion Dollar Boondoggle!

The heart of the argument I hear over and over from people who intend to vote for Measure B is the moral equivalent of those who believe in peace at any price.

"I know," they say, "everything you say is true. The DWP is a disaster and has failed in its promises to deliver solar energy. City Hall is a bad joke of corruption and incompetence. Measure B won't clean the air. It will cost too much. But we just got to have solar."

That's the heart of the solar-at-any-price argument. It's based on a fundamental belief that there's nothing we can about the failure of our city government, people are too apathetic, they have too much money from special interests. So if we got to appease them by giving the DWP a monopoly on solar energy, it's worth the price.

Joel Kotkin, the insightful critic of L.A. urban affairs, captures the sense of that in a sweeping article entitled "The Decline of Los Angeles" now online at Forbes.com. It's subtitled: "From real estate to unemployment, the city has suffered under Antonio Villaraigosa. So why is he getting re-elected?"

Kotkin quotes real estate developer Rick Caruso, one of L.A.'s last private sector power brokers who pulled out of the mayoral race at the filing deadline, ascribes Villaraigosa's lack of significant opposition to a growing sense of powerlessness, even among the city's most important business leaders.

"People feel it's kind of hopeless. It's a dysfunctional city," Caruso said. "They don't think there's anything to do."

Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who wavered in his support of Measure B and now has emerged as its spokesman, sounded a similar tone during the discussion he and I had Monday night on Which Way LA? with Warren Olney on KCRW.

Rosendahl promised to be the public's watchdog to make sure DWP delivers on the long list of promises being made for solar energy and to make sure the billions of public dollars it will cost are spent wisely.

Frankly, I think we have a lot better chance of defeating Measure B at the polls next Tuesday than seeing the City Council stand up to the DWP or the mayor on anything let alone when there are billions of dollars to be ripped off. End the apathy and defeatism. Vote No on Measure B and help restore hope to LA.

As momentum against Measure B continued to grow, the DWP -- still claiming its a neutral information source -- held a series of forums in the last few days around the city but attracted only a few dozen people, most of them protesters from Laborers Union 300.

The Laborers, like other unions of construction workers, feel the measure is a direct attack on them and their members because it gives a monopoly on solar installations to the DWP and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Meanwhile, the Daily News came out strongly against Measure B on Sunday, saying it's an unnecessary charter reform and was rushed to the ballot without adequate public discussion or knowledge of the costs.

The editorial said that "frankly, ratepayers have little reason to trust an agency that has been hiking rates repeatedly in recent years, with few results to show for the money.

"As well, this particular initiative would write into the city charter a requirement that all solar work would be done by DWP's highly paid unionized workers -- despite the fact that they don't have the skills to install and maintain solar panels...

"What's more, this measure would give the utility an airtight excuse when residents start complaining about higher-than-expected rate increases to cover the costs of the program: "Hey, you guys voted for it.'"

Like the Daily News, the Times opposed Measure E, a charter amendment that gives City Hall a blank check to give businesses incentives without proper safeguards, but delayed announcing its position on Measure B until Thursday.

It said that despite serious concerns about the use of such charter amendments, Measure B is "a special case requiring extra attention" because of its "complex and controversial" nature.

In deciding to oppose Measure B, the Green Party of LA County noted the growing opposition from labor, business, community organizations, political groups and politicians.

The Green Party cited "violations of Social Justice concerns, of shortcomings in Ecological Wisdom, of the absence of Grassroots Democracy, of the imposition of a centralized framework over Decentralization, of closed-bid rather than Community-Based Economics, of pitting union against union, instead of Respect for Diversity, of cronyism, not Personal and Global Responsibility, and misplaced and misguided Future Focus/Sustainability."

:Defeat of this top-down, anti-union, payola underwritten Proposition does not stop solar development within the City of Los Angeles. Measure B will be defeated and then we will make a real plan for clean energy and clean government, with a place for all Stakeholders at the table to refine it and move swiftly ahead."

Ten days to go o stop Measure B and we're launching a massive mail and phone bank campaign so we need your help to put us over the top in what is going to be a close race.

A few hours on the phones can change minds and get people to the polls to stop this blank check for soaring electricity rates, put the lie to the pie-in-the-sky promises of the DWP that has failed to deliver on three major solar initiatives in the last decade and ensure that we get a real clean energy plan that actually gets the clean air we all want.

Here's how to help:
Contact:

Phone:	3238647586
Email:	VoteNoOnMeasureB@gmail.com

or email me: ron@ronkayela..com

KABC's Doug McIntyre is mad as hell about Antonio's political machine and he's not going to take it any more -- so let's party on election eve, March 2.

"Join McIntyre as he rouses the rabble to turn out the vote and the political machine that�s run Los Angeles into the ground!   An election eve TAKE BACK THE CITY rally, LIVE, Monday, March 2nd from 6 � 10PM at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel at LAX!

"It�s time to stop bitchin� and start pitchin� the incumbents out of office!"

"It�s Taxpayers vs the Unions! Homeowners vs the Developers! Democracy vs the Big Fix!  Say NO MAS to Illegal Alien Gang Bangers. Say YES to Jamiel�s Law. Say No to Villaraigosa, say YES to a FREE LOS ANGELES!   

"Vote as many times as you want!"

At the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association forum Wednesday for Council District 5 candidates, I asked them where they stand on Measure B.

Adeena Bleich and David Vahedi are opposed. Ron Galperin, Robert Schwartz, Robyn Ritter Simon and Paul Koretz support it.

The U.S. Department of Energy has identified the top 25 cities using creative ways to encourage solar energy installations by helping them make sense financially.

That doesn't mean giving into to demands from the local utility for a monopoly on solar power that gives a blank check for higher rates as Measure B proposes.

You'll note five cities in San Francisco and Northern California and San Diego make the list but no LA. That's because the DWP and its union, the IBEW, have failed to deliver on promise after promise promise to go solar and now are offering a lot of pie-in-the-sky promises again.

They can't be trusted with a fourth strike. Vote NO on Measure B

Department of Energy
Solar America Cities

---

Cities across the country are taking action to make solar energy a more viable option for their communities. These Solar America Cities are using innovative approaches to remove market barriers to solar and to encourage adoption of solar energy technologies at the local level. 

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) selected 13 Solar America Cities in June 2007 and an additional 12 cities in March 2008 to help lay the foundation for a solar energy market that can serve as a model for cities around the nation.

Measure B contains only one safeguard against the squandering and theft of $3 billion and that's annual audits of the DWP solar energy program by the City Controller.

We know from experience after the last eight years that the only city official who has put the public interest ahead of private and special interests is Controller Laura Chick but she's termed out of office.

So the question is who will be the people's watchdog: Councilwoman Wendy Greuel or former DWP Commission President Nick Patsaouras?

Patsaouras has challenged (patsaourasdebate.pdf) Greuel to a debate on Measure B before the March 3 election and he's right: We have a right to know what they will do to protect the public and make sure the DWP delivers on its promises if Measure B passes.

After all, the only argument that people who support Measure B have is they want solar energy at any price and they believe this is the only way to get it after DWP and City Hall have blocked solar energy development in LA for a decade. So they certainly have a big stake in making sure that this time, the DWP and City Hall deliver.

So Wendy, what's your answer?

The LA Chamber of Commerce announced Thursday that it opposes Measure B, saying it supports clean energy but cannot "condone" the flawed process that brought this solar energy plan to the ballot.

"The L.A. Area Chamber embraces the economic and business opportunities that an aggressive solar program will bring to Los Angeles," the chamber said in a press release.

"However, the process that was used to bring Measure B to the voters cannot be condoned.  Measure B would signal a new direction in the management of the City s utility through piecemeal ballot measures intended to favor single programs that should more appropriately be considered by the DWP Commission, business, labor and the public in a broader context and through a transparent process.

"The Chamber regrets that this important discussion about solar energy was not handled in a much different manner."

The vote of the LA Chamber board was roughly 6 to 1 in favor of opposing Measure B.

United Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley took the same position to oppose the measure on Wednesday after hearing arguments from DWP General Manager David Nahai and David Freeman, the former DWP General Manager who is the leading spokesman for the Yes on B campaign.

City Attorney candidate Noel Weiss presented the case against Measure B.

A "ridiculously reasonable" plea bargain proposal

Trying to solve the mystery of who's killing my neighborhood has consumed a lot of my time and energy for the past eight months but I'm realizing that a detective's lot is not the stuff that of Sherlock Holmes or even Sam Spade.

You ask dumb questions and get dumb answers and you think you got the suspect nailed so you sit in court for hours a time half listening to the sorry tales of petty crimes and petty punishments.

I don't know how cops or prosecutors or judges or even city Building and Safety inspectors do it. It's a job, I guess.

We're at the one year anniversary of when my neighbors noticed odd goings-on at the house on Haynes Street in what I call Lower Woodland Hills, a notch of modest tract homes north of Victory Boulevard that went up in the late 1950s. I've lived here for more than two decades, some neighbors since the tract was built.

So when work crews started turning the house on Haynes into three apartments, three kitchens, three bathrooms and a dozen or so rooms overall, it was a cause of concern -- a threat to their sense of place, to the value of their property, their security, the quality of their lives, a sign of the times of the deterioration of our neighborhoods.

Building and Safety issued the first citation for construction without a permit 11 months ago. More citations followed and finally misdemeanor criminal charges but the house's ownership kept getting flipped, the suspect list clouded, hearings continued.

And finally Wednesday, it looked like the case might actually go to trial. But it didn't.

Instead, attorney Gerald Cobb showed up with Nasir Shaikh, who along with his wife Nadya Mahdavi, are accused of four counts involving the illegal conversion of the house on Haynes into a tenement. It was only last month that Shaikh was charged when state records showed he was the CEO of Fidelity Investments Groups, which owns the house bought out of foreclosure in January 2008 by Mahdavi and "sold" to her employee in May and then to Fidelity two months later.

The kitchen in the garage apartment was removed last week along with the wall separating it from one of other apartments, Cobb told Assistant City Attorney Don Cocek. Mahdavi's father was a long-time client and a good man, he said, not "greedy and disrespectful," and wanted to restore the tenement to being a single-family home to legal status with rooms that opened up to each other. The tenant in the garage could stay legally, he noted, because there's a carport.

But there was a problem.

EVENT: ONE BLOCK OFF THE GRID invites anyone in Los Angeles interested in learning more about solar community purchasing to join in their first public forum and information session in Southern California. The event is free and open to the public on Thursday, Feb. 19, from 7 to 9 p.m. at Good Magazine, 6824 Melrose Ave. RSVP at 1 BOG's Facebook page.

There's nothing negative about voting no on Measure B on March 3 -- it's defeat will open up a discussion on how to go solar right with the greatest impact at the lowest price.

A prime example of how much better off we would be in terms of getting the most solar energy at the lowest price is One Block Off The Grid, a San Francisco Bay-area community-based program that pulls together dozens of home owners and buys solar energy units as a group and cuts the best deal for them with a single company.

The savings that are resulting for thousands of Bay area residents are huge and might be even greater in L.A. where tax credits can amount to 30 percent of the cost of a solar unit, DWP subsidies 20 and up to 20 percent more from group purchases.

They even get groups together who can't afford the upfront investment so the company puts up the money, gets the tax credits and subsidies and splits the savings on electricity.

That kind of third-party ownership our own Department of Water and Power refuses to provide subsidies for even though it's own intent under Measure B is to get financial institutions to be the nominal owner of rooftop solar so the full benefits of tax credits and subsidies can be realized.

Come March 4, whatever the outcome of the vote, we need to work to change DWP policies in this regard and make sure home owners, apartment dwellers and businesses get policies that actually serve the public interest and not just City Hall's and the special interests that call the shots.

I've been talking to 1 BOG General Manager Dave Llorens, Field Director Kanyi Maqubela for several weeks about activists from the No on Measure B working together with them when they set up in LA.

They're holding an informational meeting Thursday night and plan to set up operations using volunteers in early March.

The Yes on B campaign  has offered a lot of specious arguments but they've never even tried to explain why the DWP and its union should get a monopoly on installing more than $3 billion in rooftop solar units on large buildings.

It would be tough to argue why anyone would want to hire DWP with its salaries 30 percent or more higher than other private or private utility in Southern California.

LAUSD isn't using the DWP as it launches its rooftop solar program on 200 schools and no one else would either if they could get a better price for solar from private companies. That's why Measure B bars competitive bidding and gives DWP a monopoly.

An L.A. activist has had enough of politics as usual

Steve Lopez opens his column today in the Times with a jab at the budget catastrophe in Sacramento and then sidesteps to his observation that LA has political troubles of its own.

"We're less than two weeks away from a mayoral election no one is aware of," he notes, blaming in no small part Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's refusal to debate Walter Moore or his other eight opponents on the March 3 ballot because his re-election is pre-ordained.

And that leads him to the home of Jane Usher, one of the few heroes the LA political scene has produced in years, the Planning Commission president who resigned in disgust last December over City Hall's selling out the public interest to developers and billboard companies among others.

"City Hall is too comfy with a spirit of lawlessness that jeopardizes transparency and open government," Usher said.

* The way the mayor rushed the solar panel measure onto the ballot despite questions about cost and feasibility, and against a backdrop of support from a labor union whose support Villaraigosa might find helpful in a future run for governor.

* The mayor's stony silence and City Council's towering ineptitude on the scandalous proliferation of digital billboards and supergraphics, those tacky vinyl coverings that are draped across buildings and, in some cases, make exits unusable.

* And the routine granting of land-use exceptions to well-connected developers over the objections of exasperated homeowners concerned that, yet again, the city had no plan for traffic relief.

Solar Energy's Measure B Heats Up

Councilman Bill Rosendahl's forum on Measure B Tuesday night got a little testy and I've got to confess it was mostly my fault for suggesting the two men most responsible for LA not having enough solar energy to light a digital billboard after a decade of promises were Brian D'Arcy and David Freeman.

D'Arcy is the boss of the IBEW, the DWP union, and wields more power than the mayor and City Council combined. Freeman is the former DWP general manager who loves to keep promising us massive solar energy projects but fails to deliver, mainly because D'Arcy won't let him unless he gets a monopoly on all the jobs, which is what Measure B is about.

The three of us were on the forum panel along with former DWP Commission President Nick Patsaouras, who's running for City Controller with a long record of service as the public's watchdog on its money; community activist Dede Audet, an environmentalist who has seen through the financial lies being told to sell Measure B, and environmental activist James Provezano who believes that if we don't vote for Measure B, the DWP/IBEW won't ever let us have solar energy.

About 300 people attended with the largest contingent packed in by IBEW which led to lots of shouting and cheering by both sides and prompted a City Council aide to murmur, "They're still better behaved than the panelists!"

KNBC described the debate as heated and provided some video of what occurred.

"SORRY, BUT I CANNOT ATTEND THIS ONE AFTER ALL. I GOT A TRIAL DOWNTOWN THAT DAY."

 

That's the message on attorney Walter

Moore's campaign calendar for Tuesday and the event, the UCLA Bruin Political Forum at 6 p.m. is crossed out.

 

What makes Moore's cancellation so

interesting is the nature of the trial downtown that will force him to pass up the chance to win over voters to his mayoral candidacy.

 

Moore is the lead attorney for Clear Channel Outdoor which is accused of fraud, specifically forging documents so it could expand its easement on a Studio City commercial property in order to have enough space to put up a digital billboard.

 

It's no mystery that Moore has made a handsome living representing the billboard industry for years or that he's taken campaign contributions from his billboard benefactors.

 

But it can't help Moore's campaign for mayor for him to be spending the rest of the week in court defending the most despised billboard company at a time when billboard companies are the most despised of the many villains that City Hall's pay-for-play political corruption produces.

 

Digital billboards and their visual blight popping everywhere with their messages of glamorous hyper-consumerism, thousands of illegal billboards annoying everyone, dozens of lawsuits blocking enforcement of even the timid laws are city officials have enacted - none of that does much to Moore's pseudo-populist anti-immigrant, anti-government waste campaign.

 

But a guy has got a right to earn a living and even villains like Clear Channel have a right to legal representation.

 

The particulars of this case add another dimension of interest.

 

The plaintiff is Carpenter Plaza strip mall on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City which is owned by realtor Mort Allen, a driving force behind the City Attorney campaign of Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich.

 

In a case to be heard by Superior Court Judge Mary Ann Murphy, Allen alleges that Clear Channel through its predecessor company Eller Media engaged in fraud by forging documents back in 2001 when he agreed to give the company a 10-foot easement for 35 years for an 18-year-old billboard on his property in exchange for $650,000.

 

There wasn't any problem until February 2007 when Clear Channel sent Allen a form to give permission for an electrical upgrade so the sign could be converted into a digital billboard.

 

That's when Allen, objecting to the digital billboard on his property, started looking into the situation and discovered that the county registrar's records showed company had a 20-foot easement - not a 10-foot easement - which would be big enough for a digital billboard.

 

According to a deposition in the case, a company attorney in Phoenix changed the 10s on the front page of the legal document to 20s and attached a drawing of the site when the papers were being filed.

 

At issue for the judge to decide is whether Allen or his attorneys gave their permission for the changes and whether he's entitled to substantial damages.

 

If Allen wins, another question might arise: Is this the only time that Clear Channel engaged in such practices or are there other victims?

EDITOR'S NOTE: The LA Times posted excerpts today from the Editorial Board's meeting with leaders of the VoteNoMeasureB campaign with the headline: Yes on solar, no on this solar program -----------------------------------------------

Solar energy for LA get nearly 100 percent support from the public and it has for more than a decade.

But when people hear what Measure B is really about, there's nearly 100 percent opposition to this phony solar energy plan that gives a blank check for billions to the mayor, City Council and the Department of Water and Power officials -- the very people who have repeatedly failed to deliver on their clean energy promises for a decade and now ask us to trust them.

The public wants the most amount of clean energy at the lowest cost in the fastest time. They want clean air and DWP's massive portfolio of the nation's most polluting power plants closed.

Measure B doesn't do any of that. It's got no planning, no legitimate cost analysis or financial planning. It doesn't close a single dirty power plant.

It's nothing but a monopoly for the DWP that pays 20 to 30 percent more to its workers than other Southern California utilities -- including 6 percent pay raises the last two years -- and gives them staggeringly high lifetime benefits. It freezes out union labor in the skilled trades, workers who are on unemployment because of the housing downturn. It excludes private businesses that could create thousands of new jobs instead of the 400 DWP jobs the Yes on B campaign says this measure will create..

That's why three City Council members who voted to put Measure B on the ballot without understanding the dirty deal it is -- Bernard Parks, Dennis Zine and Greig Smith -- now oppose it and a fourth, Bill Rosendahl, is now undecided.

Four of the five City Attorney candidates oppose it and so does City Controller candidate Nick Patsaouras and nearly all other candidates for mayor and council seats.

So far, 32 Neighborhood Councils and two NC coalitions, at least seven homeowner groups and business organizations, the county Republican Party and the Harbor Democratic club have joined the opposition.

Measure B will be defeated and then we will get a real plan for clean energy and clean government, give everyone a chance to refine it and move swiftly ahead.

Here's the latest list of Measure B's opponents with more to come:

Los Angeles County Republican Party

Progressive Democratic Club - Greater Harbor Area

Valley Alliance of Neighborhood Councils

Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Coalition

Valley Industry & Commerce Association

Association of Builders and Contractors

Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles

Granada Hills Chamber of Commerce

Watts Neighborhood Council

MidTown NoHo Neighborhood Council

South Robertson Neighborhood Council

Sun Valley Neighborhood Council

Westside Neighborhood Council

Northridge West Neighborhood Council

Winnetka Neighborhood Council

West Hills Neighborhood Council

Chatsworth Neighborhood Council

Greater Valley Glen CC

Reseda Neighborhood Council (pdf)

Woodland Hills Warner Center Neighborhood Council

Valley Village Community Council

Bel Air Beverly Crest Neighborhood Council

Encino Neighborhood Council

Tarzana Neighborhood Council

Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Council

Studio City Neighborhood Council

Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council

Hollywood United Neighborhood Council

Hollywood Studio District Neighborhood Council

Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council

Granada Hills Neighborhood Council

Foothill Trails District Neighborhood Council

Harbor Gateway South Neighborhood Council

Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council

Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council

Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council

Nearly five years ago, I went to work on the kernel of an idea on how to reinvent journalism to serve the community using the technology of the 21st century -- a central place where all of Los Angeles can come to share their knowledge and ideas and learn about what's going on in our city.

 

It started with the launch of the Daily News citizen journalism website valleynews.com and has evolved in the last year into OurLA.org with the help of Internet experts, business and civic leaders and community activists from across Los Angeles.

I'm pleased to announce that Our LA was approved last week to become part of Community Partners, the largest incubator of non-profit community organizations in Los Angeles. It is fully operational but will not be launched until the spring when it is loaded with content.

 

This is really exciting, a dream coming true for me. It is what I set out to do when I left the Daily News in April and started blogging and became a community activist.

 

Operating under Community Partners auspices and with the help of its President and CEO Paul Vandeventer and Senior Program Director Cynthia Freeman who refined the concept of Our L.A., we are now able to seek tax deductible contributions.

 

If you wish to contribute, you may send a check to Community Partners FBO (for the benefit of) Our LA, 1000 North Alameda St., Suite 240, Los Angeles CA  or go to their website and contribute by credit card.

 

Initial funding will allow us to hire staff to load OurLA.org with content from the hundreds of websites and blogs all across the city that deal with issues of community importance.  Volunteers with basic computer skills are welcome and needed. Just write me at ron@ronkayela.com.

 

Our LA is intended to be the Public Square for Los Angeles. I describe it in simplest terms as Huffington Post meets Facebook meets the old Valley News & Green Sheet. It combines citizen journalism with professional journalism, blogs and commentary, video and podcasts, forums and databases.

 

I've prepared a short explanation with more information about Our LA ( OURLA1Page.doc )   and don't be shy about providing me with your ideas and feedback.

 

This is a non-profit because it's meant to belong to the community.

Toward that end we will be creating an advisory board and a series of regional networks who want to be involved in helping to develop this Public Square into a place where the grassroots of civic engagement can grow into a new civic culture for Los Angeles, a place where people of all backgrounds and beliefs can come together and give birth to a new spirit for the city.

The success of Our LA will depend on your participation and the value it brings to you and the community.

Our LA will launch in the spring. Please let me know what you think and your interest in being involved.

The LA Times Editorial Board under Publisher Eddie Hartenstein and Editorial Page Editor Jim Newton have launched their endorsements for the March 3 election with kind words for all five candidates for City Attorney, even Jack Weiss of all people.

But Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich gets their strong endorsement: Here's some excerpts:

"...we believe the best package of civil and criminal know-how, and the right combination of savvy and arm's length distance from City Hall politics, are offered by Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich. The Times endorses Trutanich for city attorney.

"Trutanich presents a strong vision for the office, with tough prosecution of violence tempered by a real-world recognition that gang crime must be answered with alternatives for youth. He supports and would enhance the neighborhood prosecutors program, one of Delgadillo's best ideas. He has the civil practice background to get a handle on Los Angeles' penchant for agreeing too easily to settlements, and impresses us as a man who would be willing to take a risky case to trial -- and suffer the political consequences if he loses -- in order to serve notice that the city will not roll over at the merest threat of a lawsuit by a billboard company or a disaffected employee."

Councilwoman Wendy Greuel gets the Times' nod over former DWP Commission President Nick Patsaouras in a tepid endorsement that contains more warnings than praise:

"...her ability to work within the system sometimes veers into a fear of alienating others in power and a willingness to take cheap shots at those she knows won't retaliate.

"We're unimpressed, to say the least, with Greuel's campaign commercial, in which she takes on a program at the Housing Department and rails against "the city" for its failure to track loans. As for the loans, she has been a member of the council's oversight committee and bears as much responsibility as anyone. As for the department, she would do well to ensure that every city agency is as efficient and effective, and as good at resisting political pressure from council members who would rather the department offer special deals to favored developers than conduct business in an evenhanded, transparent fashion. The department should be her model, not her target.

"We believe Greuel can be better than her campaign. We urge her to prove it."

CHRISTOPHER COMMISSION REPORT 1991: Chapter 10, Page 220-221

"The Chief while needing to be more responsive to the Police Commission and to the city's elected leadership also must be protected from improper political influences.

"The Independent Commission recommends that the Chief of Police not endorse candidates for public office

"Because the chief's office is inherently powerful, it is unseemly for the Chief to use that position to influence the political process. It is particularly ironic to create a system to insulate the Chief from improper political pressure, and then have the Chief use that protected position to campaign on behalf of politicians who thereby become indebted to him.

"Such activity politicizes the Chief, and ultimately the Department."

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article was written by David A. Lehrer, former Regional Director of the Anti-Defamation League; and Vice President Joe R. Hicks, former Executive Director of the Los Angeles City Human Relations Commission. They are the president and vice president of Community Advocates, a nonprofit organization that advocates innovative approaches to human relations and race relations in Los Angeles city and county.

Our Tipping Point 
 
By David A. Lehrer and Joe R. Hicks
 
Malcolm Gladwell's best seller explores the "tipping point"---that moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, "tips" and spreads like wildfire. 
 
In the past few weeks we have reached a "tipping point" locally. Organizations with normally benign missions and legitimate purposes have abused, misused and /tipped /into malevolence by using their nearly unfettered power to serve their narrow interests. 
 
Public employee unions, which once focused on securing and safeguarding appropriate pay and working conditions for their membership in hostile political climates, have flexed their muscles in strangely inappropriate ways. They have pushed public officials who, for the most part, they had a role in electing or could potentially defeat, to promote lousy public policy that is far afield from the traditional domains of labor-management relations. 
 
It's been a long time coming, but the past few weeks have made clear that unless there are some courageous voices willing to say no to the unions, Lord Acton's admonition about power corrupting and absolute power corrupting absolutely will be proven true once again, and at Los Angeles' expense. 
 
Nearly a year ago, the /Times/ gave us a peek at what was coming. It reported on the dissolution of the joint effort to clean up the pollution emanating from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The mayor of Long Beach resisted Mayor Villaraigosa's efforts to force a Teamsters'-backed provision that would have required independent truckers at Long Beach harbor to be employees of trucking companies---a stipulation that would have facilitated union organizing of the truckers. Villaraigosa's insistence on that provision scuttled the plan. Appropriately, the mayor of Long Beach refused to acquiesce saying, "My job is not to promote their [union's] interests. My job is not to promote corporate interests. My job is to promote the public interest." 
 
Villaraigosa's insistence on the pro-union provision scuttled the plan, which in turn has delayed adoption of plans to significantly reduce the southland's largest source of pollution. The /Times/ subsequently reported on the punitive measures directed at Long Beach's mayor and Long Beach itself by Teamsters' supporters in Sacramento after he refused to play their game. 
 
Several months ago we began to see the same forces at work---the hidden hand of a public employee union pushing elected officials and bureaucrats to do dumb things--in other areas of public policy. 
 
Measure "B" on the March 3^rd ballot has as sordid a history of obfuscation and misdirection as can be imagined. Elected officials approved a ballot measure to pursue the admirable goal of increased reliance on solar energy by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power with no hearings and near perfect ignorance as to the project's cost (which range from $1.5 to $3.6 billion), its roll out or its accounting. The means chosen-- exclusive DWP installation, operation and maintenance of solar panels on properties in the city with all work done by DWP employees-- are questionable. There are revelations of backroom planning and string pulling by the head of the union (the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, "IBEW") whose members would benefit from the exclusive right to work on the project. The LA City Council compliantly voted for a measure with the only certainties about it being that the IBEW and the mayor sought their acquiescence. 
 
There are ways to become "green" and to do it intelligently and with appropriate discussion and debate. Putting the bum's rush on electeds and the electorate *just because you can* isn't the way to make the environmental progress that we so desperately need. It is unseemly and it is wrong. 
 
And then there's United Teachers Los Angeles and the LAUSD's periodic assessment tests. The tests "give teachers insight into what students need to learn while there remains time in the current school year to adjust instruction." The tests are designed to provide individualized data to the teachers, within 48 hours of having been administered, of what each student has mastered in English, language arts, math, science and social studies - core academic subjects. A statistical analysis by the LAUSD has found that the assessments "contribute to higher student achievement." 
 
UTLA refuses to administer the tests because, in their words, they produce "junk data" which "do little to help them evaluate student progress." UTLA's head A.J. Duffy asserts that "we don't need district-mandated tests to know whether the students we work with every day are learning." An absurd claim since studies on the impact of the assessment tests show that they make a measurable difference in student achievement and they are geared to the curriculum the teachers are supposed to be teaching. 
 
Not only is there precious little resistance to UTLA's outlandish position, there is at least one candidate for office who is pandering for UTLA support even *before* he feeds at the public trough. Paul Koretz, a candidate for Council District 5, wrote to the /Times/ that the tests should be eliminated because, "teachers are a more important tool" and "any optional item in the budget should be deleted that doesn't involve keeping as many teachers in the classroom as possible." By that logic, any item that doesn't go for more teacher pay ought to be nixed. Student achievement doesn't enter his calculation---UTLA's approval is, seemingly, *all that matters*. Koretz's pander is particularly blatant and shameful, but in substance no different than the incidents cited above---good public policy is sacrificed on what appears to be the altar of union approval, union funds, and in response to union pressure. 
 
The tragedy is that there is an important role for unions in our society; labor relations nirvana has not yet been reached. But there is something terribly wrong when public employee unions end up controlling both sides of the negotiating table and decide to become the arbiters of policy in areas that are far afield from their core expertise and responsibilities. 
 
It will take elected officials with firm backbones to resist the pressure to which they are subjected; officials with the optimism to trust that the public will recognize and reward their courage. If civic institutions and leaders join them, we will tip back to where we should be and avoid our malady spreading. 
 

Don't miss Which Way L.A.? with Warren Olney tonight between 7 and 8 p.m. on KCRW. City Controller Laura Chick discusses Measure B with former DWP General Manager David Freeman.

In the official No on Measure B video made for Ch. 35 LA Cityview, Jack Humphreville succinctly makes the case on why against this City Charter Amendment.

Editor's Note: While City Hall pulls out all stops to sell L.A. voters on signing a blank check for soaring rates and sweetheart contracts, SoCal Edison has gone about its business professionally and signed a deal for just as much electricity using solar thermal technology -- which is far cheaper and more efficient than rooftop solar. By the way Measure B bars the use of solar thermal. Here's a link to a longer story on CNN.

  SoCal Edison in 1,300 megawatt solar power deal

Thursday, February 12, 2009

(02-12) 11:10 PST Rosemead, CA (AP) -- An Oakland energy firm announced 20-year contracts that would supply Southern California Edison with enough solar power to light up 845,000 homes if the plan receives regulatory approval.

The agreement between Rosemead-based SoCal Edison and BrightSource Energy Inc. is believed to be the biggest-ever deal for solar thermal power, which uses heat from the sun to create steam to spin turbines. The project calls for seven plants, totaling 1,300 megawatts, to be built in southeastern California over the next seven years.

Though the project still requires approval by the state Public Utilities Commission, the companies say the first 100-megawatt facility could be built in the Mojave Desert near the Nevada border and be operational by 2013.

SoCal Edison would not say what it's paying BrightSource. The PUC allows that information to remain confidential.

"We do see solar as the large untapped resource, particularly in Southern California," said Stuart Hemphill, vice president for renewable and alternative power at SoCal Edison.

The agreement unveiled Wednesday was the second major contract announced by BrightSource. It signed a deal last year with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to supply the San Francisco-based utility with up to 900 megawatts of solar thermal power.

State law requires SoCal Edison, PG&E and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. to get 20 percent of their electricity from clean sources by the end of 2010. Edison generates 16 percent of its power from renewable sources and has been one of the most active in pursuing clean alternatives to fossil fuels.

Renewable-energy analysts have high hopes for solar-thermal power. Some believe the technology will generate electricity as cheaply as dirty coal within 15 years.

But some environmentalists oppose the technology because it requires vast tracts of land and precious water for generating steam and cooling the turbines.

___

On the Net:

SoCal Edison: www.sce.com/

BrightSource Energy: www.brightsourceenergy.com/

___

 

Don't miss part two of the four-day Dust-Up debate on Measure B at the L.A. Times as Jack Humphreville and Sarah Leonard do a point/counterpoint on today's topic:Today's topic: Why did the city rush to put Measure B on the March 3 ballot before a full analysis of its cost and effect on rates was completed?

Here's more news in today's Clean Energy report:

Green Energy Not Cutting Europe's Carbon

Wind farms and solar panels are a European success story. But the dirty little secret is that using renewable energy isn't reducing carbon emissions

Those are the headlines on a new article from Der Spiegel at Business Week online that looks at Europe's extraordinarily successful efforts at generating clean energy and finds a big problem.

"The climate hasn't in fact profited from these developments. As astonishing as it may sound, the new wind turbines and solar cells haven't prohibited the emission of even a single gram of CO2," Anselm Waldermann reports.

"Even more surprising, the European Union's own climate change policies, touted as the most progressive in the world, are to blame. The EU-wide emissions trading system determines the total amount of CO2 that can be emitted by power companies and industries. And this amount doesn't change - no matter how many wind turbines are erected."

That's because those who reduce their emissions get pollution credits that are sold to others who need them to avoid going the clean energy route. This is now dawning on the German Green Party and other environmentalists who are pushing for actual reductions instead carbon emissions and real conservation measures that reduce energy use.

It's the heart of what's wrong with L.A.'s Measure B: It doesn't reduce our dependence on fossil fuel or clean the air as supporters claim. It's a feel-good measure that perpetuates the problem instead of solving it.

Los Angeles' Bungled Solar Plan

How D'Arcy and Villaraigosa turned clean energy into a dirty dispute

The LA Weekly exposes more that's wrongwith Measure B by reporting it came about in back room deals intended to further Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and IBEW union boss Brian D'Arcy's bottomless thirst for power and monet,

"Despite its sunny title "Green Energy and Good Jobs for Los Angeles Solar Initiative" is dogged by the fact that the plan to generate 400 megawatts from acres of glistening photo-voltaic panels creates city-government jobs while cutting the area's hungry private solar firms out of a six-year bonanza," according to the article by former Daily News reporter Beth Barrett whose article is illustrated by former Daily News cartoonist Patrick O'Connor.

"Measure B landed on the March ballot after less public input than any billion-dollar government scheme in Southern California in recent memory. Criticism has grown intense even as a slick campaign embraced by many leading politicians to win over voters gets under way.'"

PARTING SHOT: DWP at work wasting water in a drought

Sue Doyle in the Daily News reports DWP officials have allowed thousands of gallons of water to gush from a hydrant at Mason Avenue and the Orange Line at Victory Boulevard for 10 days and expect the flood to last another week.

The reason: "The gushing hydrant is relieving pressure on an old, damaged water line and two leaky valves below nearby Victory Boulevard and De Soto Avenue. Work to fix it began Feb. 2, but repairs have been delayed by recent rains."

"We certainly appreciate the value of the water and the concern that we have to conserve all the water supplied to us," said Martin Adams, DWP director of water operations. "The fact of life is, we have an aging infrastructure."

Maybe Laura Chick and the PA Consulting report got it right about the DWP..

In those odd moments when he isn't napping, calling developers for money or posturing as if he actually does something for the people of Los Angeles, Councilman Jack Weiss seems to have a rare knack of making enemies.

You can talk to almost anyone in Weiss' Westside/Sherman Oaks/Encino district who has paid attention to the councilman's record of public service over the last eight years and the verdict is nearly unanimous: Anyone but Jack Weiss. They even tried to recall him from office over his sellouts to developers, his duplicitous actions on digital billboards and his deaf ear to their concerns.

Just yesterday, Councilwoman Jan Perry said she found Weiss' self-congratulatory ads for his City Attorney campaign "disappointing." Controller Laura Chick called them "offensive." Councilman Dennis Zine, a strong supporter of Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich, dismissed Weiss as an "egotistical individual who will do anything to try to convince voters to elect him to public office."

And today, Jane Usher -- who resigned recently as head of the Planning Commission after courageously trying to stop digital billboard blight and protect the quality of life in the city's neighborhoods -- came out strongly in support of Trutanich, saying Weiss' candidacy "is undermined by his antagonism to neighborhoods and by his profound reliance upon developers and lobbyists."
 
Their public comments reflected the disdain for Weiss so many inside City Hall, elected officials and staff, have been whispering about for so long -- whispering because the intimidation tactics employed by Mayor Villaraigosa and his cronies have silenced most of the city's most influential voices.

Weiss does have friends in high place including the mayor's clique and Police Chief William Bratton who like his go-along-to-get-along willingness to do whatever they want whenever they want it.

Last week, Bratton took the extraordinary step -- both ethically and in terms of police practice and policy -- and endorsed Weiss with feint praise, saying, "At this particular time, it's crucial that the city attorney know and get along with the U.S. attorney, district attorney, Los Angeles Police Department and the city in general."

We'll soon find out if the "city in general" likes Weiss so much but we know District Attorney Steve Cooley does not. He is the leading supporter of Trutanich. The U.S. attorney is unlikely to comment about a former employee with an undistinguished record as a government lawyer.

That leaves just the LAPD, which in the absence of a vote of the rank-and-file (80 percent of whom live outside the city), means Bratton himself.

It's hard to believe a tough cop like Bratton respects a guy as soft as Weiss who even when he's right as he was six years ago in calling attention to the lack of police crime lab staff to test rape kits is incapable of actually getting anything accomplished.
 
It's easy to understand Bratton's support of Weiss who is certain to carry on the tradition of Rocky Delgadillo that Usher described as "a striking legacy of misjudgment and cronyism."

What's disturbing is that in doing so Bratton violates one of the canons of law enforcement, one of the principles identified in the Christopher Commission's blueprint for reform of the LAPD in 1991.

In a section entitled "Political Activity of the Chief," the Christopher Commission noted the legal right of the chief like other civil servants to engage in political activities but it raised serious questions about the appropriateness of then Chief Daryl Gates backing Robert Philobosian for District Attorney in 1984.

The concern was that his action "politicized the Department, damaged officer morale, and undermined public confidence in the Department's impartiality and objectivity."

It noted a survey that found police chiefs across the country were nearly unanimous in believing they should not endorse "under any circumstances."

Even Gates agreed and testified to the commission that he regretted endorsing Councilman Hal Bernson because he was "angry" and felt it was "improper" and that such endorsements "should be discouraged."

All I can say is Jack Weiss is no Robert Philobosian, he's not even a Hal Bernson.

For the Chief of Police to endorse someone like Weiss certainly politicizes the department and undermines public confidence.

Bratton doesn't have the excuses that Gates had back then. It is a disservice to the department and to the city.

But you haven't heard a peep from the mayor or the Police Commission. And that's what should make voters convinced that Weiss must be stopped.

This is not the LAPD of William Parker or Daryl Gates despite its abuses at the May Day rally that have cost taxpayers a fortune. We're proud of the LAPD and the progress that has been made.

Bratton's endorsement of someone like Jack Weiss threatens those gains that have cost us so dearly. We don't need a "yes man" as city attorney doing the chief's bidding. We need someone who will bring integrity to the office and in the words of Jane Usher "restore the office to a stronghold of honorable public service." 

It's a year too late to save California from the dire consequences of the total failure of our elected leaders but the Sacramento Bee just reported there's a state budget deal.

Here's the Bee's email alert, if anybody cares anymore:

Schwarzenegger have reached a tentative deal on closing the state's projected $40 billion budget gap, according to sources close to the negotiations.

Staff members are still working out some drafting issues, one source said, but a vote is scheduled for Friday.

Details of the pact are still emerging, but the plan involves tax increases, cuts and borrowing. The state also stands to receive billions in federal stimulus money as the package approaches closure in Washington.

On Tuesday, sources said the plan would raise sales taxes by one cent on the dollar, increase income taxes across the board and hike the vehicle license fee from the current .65 percent of the vehicle's value to 1.15 percent.

The Department of Water and Power launched the nattion's largest solar energy initative back in 1999 under S. David Freeman but by 2002  it was exposed by City Controller Laura Chick as nothing but a fraud (solar-audit2002cover.pdf) that had wasted millions of dollars and generated virtually no electricity.

A year later, DWP started the nation's largest solar energy program for the second time. Today, six years later, it has achieved only a tiny fraction of the electricity that it promised.

Now, DWP wants to take a third swing at solar energy under Measure B.

Controller Chick issued a five-year review of DWP's operations and programs by the private firm PA Consulting (IEA-summary.doc) and said it convinced here to oppose the March 3 ballot meaasure. Here's what she had to say:



DWP General Manager also issued a report last week, one he commissioned by the private firm Huron Consulting (solar-HuronReport.pdf). It was a statistical analysis based on various hypotheticals that said the costs of Measure B would be far lower than PA Consulting found. Here's what Nahai told the L.A. Neighborhood Council Coalition on Saturday:



Today, the L.A. Times started a four-day Point/Counterpoint debate in its Dust-Up online feature between the Yes on B and No on B campaigns  Political consultant Sarah Leonard who works for the Yes campaign and Jack Humphreville, a member of the DWP Committee, wrote the opposing views.

Today's topic: City Controller Laura Chick says she'll vote no on Measure B because she thinks "the entire process of how it ended up on the ballot stinks." On the other hand, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other local leaders tout Measure B as a badly needed green economic stimulus. Which side is correct?

Measure B: Solar Savior or Shady Politics?

The right time for L.A. to go solar

Point: Sarah Leonard

The iconic German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck once said, "Laws are like sausages -- it is better not to see them being made."

We have been given a front-row seat to see how the sausage is made with the placement of Measure B on the March 3 Los Angeles city ballot. Although L.A. City Controller Laura Chick is entitled to oppose Measure B simply because she doesn't like the looks of the lawmaking process, a broad coalition representing more than 1 million environmentalists, union members, health and community advocates -- as well as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, City Council President Eric Garcetti and state Assembly Speaker Karen Bass -- support Measure B, which would provide our city with the economic stimulus it needs while ensuring that future generations will not have to rely on expensive, dirty fossil fuels.

Read More

Counterpoint: Jack Humphreville

City Controller Laura Chick opposes Measure B because the process that got it onto the March 3 ballot stinks. There's something fishy about asking voters to give a blank check for billions of dollars to the same city officials and DWP who have failed to deliver on their solar energy promises for a decade.

Back in 2002, Chick conducted an audit of DWP's Green Power Program and found the utility's management had an "arrogant" and "cavalier" attitude about spending hundreds of millions of dollars and "failed to produce any new long-lasting sources of renewable power." She called for major changes in DWP's management, saying, "The environmental goal of generating renewable energy is too important to continue funding mediocre and failed 'experiments.' The public deserves to know about these programs and how their money is being spent." The architect of those failed experiments was former DWP General Manager S. David Freeman, who is now being put forth by the Measure B campaign as the fount of wisdom on running solar energy programs.

Nothing has changed in the years since Chick's audit.

Read More

Editor's Note: Listen to Councilman Tony Cardenas' brilliant interrogation of DWP officials (cardenas-dwp.mp3) on Measure B or read this article, or both. You might even listen to Council President Eric Garcetti "greenwash" past DWP failures and anticipate its failure to deliver on the promises of Measure B (garcetti-dwp.mp3).

Three months after putting Measure B unanimously on the March 3 ballot, the City Council actually held a public hearing Tuesday to ask Department of Water and Power officials what their plan is and to give the public an honest chance to talk about it.

It took an emergency meeting of the Council's Energy and Environment Committee to allow for some semblance of a meaningful public hearing -- one that called solely because the council is "on the defensive after taking a media hammering," as Daniel Heimpel of the LA Weekly put it.

Heimpel's article carried the headline: "Measure B: Baffled DWP can't name one "on time" solar project."

The basis of the headline was a question from Councilman Tony Cardenas -- "the only serious question" that was asked about the largest solar energy initiative ever undertaken in U.S. history.

"Give me one renewables project that is on time and on budget," Cardenas asked of the assembled DWP officials. "And don't give me 'hydroelectric.' That is old school."

The DWP representatives looked at each other like baffled SEC execs in a Congressional hearing, according to Heimpel. They said they couldn't think of a single one, and would get back to Cardenas.

Imagine that. Three weeks before voters are supposed to decide this issue, the DWP not only doesn't have a plan to carry out this multi-billion-dollar program, they don't even know what they've done in the past.

Don't you love it -- Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, so cocky of his political prowess despite his policy failures, is gearing up for a run for governor of California that he is boasting of his honor to keep his promises.

Maybe somebody should ask his wife or his Sacramento roommate Bob Hertzberg or the pal of his youth Gil Cedillo about that.

After all, we're talking about a man who promised to take over the schools and educate kids, a man who promised to hire 1,000 more cops but only got 700 and paid for it by leaving 600 civilian positions open, a man who has run up the largest budget deficit in city history even as he has raised fees, taxes and rates faster than any mayor in city history.

I guess he's right: Those broken promises and failures ought to make him the right man to follow Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger into the governor's

At least that seems to be Antonio's mindset in giving the Associated Press an interview published widely Monday in which he deliberately opened the door to the governor's race even as he runs for re-election for mayor.

I guess that's why the insiders say Wendy Greuel is already anointed as a worthy successor of carrying on the tradition of over-development, digital billboards, phony green energy schemes and service to special interests.

It's not like the mayor is lacking in humility. He does admit that he "should have been as diligent with my personal life and disciplined as I am in my public life," referring to  his affair with TV reporter Mirthala Salinas.

But his sin was minor:  "I didn't handle it the right way."

AP reporter Michael Blood does capture the mayor's forcefulness as he noticed him "occasionally thumping the table with his fists for emphasis" during the interview, especially when he "scoffed at critics who see him as long on promises and self-promotion and short on results."

Who can blame Antonio for being defensive about something like that?

UPDATE: Shortly before 4 p.m. Monday, word spread that the City Council has called a "Special Meeting" for 8:30 a.m. Tuesday of the Energy and Environment Committee, chair Jan Perry, members Eric Garcetti, Wendy Greuel, Tony Cardenas and Richard Alarcon, to discuss the DWP response to questions about solar plans. The meeting is not listed on the Council meeting and agenda site. Its purpose is unknown. solar-09-0239_rpt_dwp_1-30-09.pdf

What better time for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (water-la-1-09.rtf) to call for tougher water conservation measures than in the middle of the heaviest series of rainstorms in years.

But that's what public relations and self-promotion is about when you wait until the third year of a drought to take the problem of water shortages seriously.

"The Mayor will ask the DWP to approve Shortage-Year Rates, which will lower customer water allocations according to a tiered pricing system. The Mayor will also call on DWP to double the number of its Water Conservation Team and expand enforcement hours," the mayor's statement said.

On Saturday, DWP General Manager said L.A. has reduced water use by 6 percent but it wasn't clear whether that was residential customers only or all consumers.

Compare that to Long Beach which imposed tough restrictions 17 months ago, and done a great job -- nearly 20 percent below this 10-year historical average.

Here's an excerpt from the full (water-longbeach-1-09.rtf) Long Beach press release last week:

Long Beach Hits Record Low Water Consumption in January Jan '09 was 19.3% below average; despite third hottest Jan. on record in LA County

LONG BEACH, CA - The Long Beach Board of Water Commissioners are praising the actions of Long Beach Water Department customers, who continue to shatter 10-year record lows for water consumption, during what is shaping up as the worst California water supply crisis in modern history.   Long Beach water consumption for January '09 was 19.3 percent below the 10-year historical average.  The 10-year historical average is from FY'98 to FY'07, which are the 10 years prior to Long Beach's call for extraordinary conservation and prohibitions on certain outdoor uses of water.  January '09  was 8.8 percent below January '08.  January '09 was the third hottest January on record in Los Angeles County, and Long Beach received only 0.17 inches of precipitation; whereas normal precipitation in Long Beach is 2.95 inches.  January '09 is the thirteenth record setting month for low water consumption since September 2007.

Early last month, the Long Beach Board of Water Commissioners issued a water supply ALERT for the City of Long Beach and southern California, due to extremely weak precipitation and snow pack in the northern Sierra Nevada; an uneventful forecast for northern California watersheds, including new predictions of dry La Nina conditions forming in the Pacific Ocean; extremely low water supply reserve levels; and the anticipated additional curtailment of imported water deliveries from north to south due to endangered species issues.  The new ALERT urges Long Beach residents to sustain the City's record breaking reductions in water use.  More importantly, Long Beach Water officials are urging area cities to engage their residents.  "Our current water supply conditions should be a catalyst for southern California water supply managers to immediately increase action on extraordinary conservation measures, particularly prohibiting certain outdoor uses of water, stated John Allen, President of the Long Beach Board of Water Commissioners.  "Southern California water suppliers should be practicing and preparing for the worst; hope is not an adequate strategy."

On September 13, 2007, the Long Beach Board of Water Commissioners issued a Declaration of Imminent Water Supply Shortage and activated the City's Emergency Water Supply Shortage Plan.  As a result, the Board of Water Commissioners issued mandatory prohibitions on certain outdoor uses of water.  "The Board took the action it did, over a year ago now, to forestall and lessen the impact of an expected water supply shortage," according to Board president, John Allen.  The Board's Declaration in 2007 was necessitated by the profound impact of permanent reductions to imported water deliveries into southern California; the dramatic reductions in water storage levels in key reservoirs in northern California; and climate realities.  

At a meeting Saturday of the L.A. Neighborhood Council Coalition, attended by many members of the DWP Committee and the Saving L.A. Project, David Nahai patiently spent two hours presenting the case for Measure B, the March 3 solar initiative.

He faced a a skeptical audience.of people who oppose Measure B and its pie-in-the-sky promises from the people who have failed to deliver on clean energy for a decade and now want a blank check for billions of dollars to do anything they want with. 

Nahai used the usual DWP disclaimer that he's not advocating for Measure B, which would be an ethical violation, and then advocated as the DWP general manager for the entire unplanned and un-analyzed solar energy plan that includes Measure B.

He rested his entire case on the premise that DWP is now committed to solar energy despite having resisted it so actively for so long and on the solar-HuronReport.pdf report he commissioned to show it will only add $1 a month to the average resident's electricity bill.

Soledad Garcia, head of the DWP Advocacy Committee and the DWP MOU Committee, tore his arguments to shreds with a few comments and questions (nahai-soledad.mp3

In fact, Huron is nothing but a statistical analysis built on numerous hypotheticals and nobody knows for sure whether it would cost the public $1 billion as Huron suggests or $3.6 billion as the PA Consulting report (IEA-summary.doc )(IEA-excerpts.doc) suggested in its exhaustive charter-mandated survey of DWP operations and programs covering the last five years.

Nahai dismissed the year-long PA Consulting report which questioned whether DWP management could even handle the complexities of the largest solar energy initiative in U.S. history when it's allowed its power grid to deteriorate and is struggling to manage a $5.3 billion upgrade that will send rates soaring even higher.

Under questioning, Nahai had to admit that the Huron report which he said cost DWP "somewhere around $100,000," is only a PowerPoint presentation without supporting detail.or analysis.

Amazingly, he authorized all that money and doesn't even have access to the basis of the report and doesn't feel any need to know anymore. For that, he's paid more than $300,000 a year.

Listen to his answers to Soledad's questions (nahai-soledad.mp3) and listen to City Controller Laura Chick's comments made previously (chick1.mp3 
chick2.mp3

Public Comment to L.A. City Council - Feb.6,2009

By Joe Vitti
President of Valley Vote

My name is Joe Vitti. I am the DWP representative for the Granada Hills North Neighborhood Council. However my comments today are my personal views.

I support Solar Power and the Mayor's goals but I do not support Measure B

In 2003 Mayor Villaraigosa urged the DWP to move away from coal to "green power" to increase solar rebates and aim for 20% renewable energy by 2010.  In September of 2005 I sent an Email to then DWP Commissioner Mary Nichols with recommendations to greatly expand the LADWP Solar Budget.

There is an overwhelming argument to oppose Measure B based simply on the way it was placed on the ballot. It violated the spirit of openness and transparency as it was rushed through in weeks without review. The city council was initially given information that differs greatly from the reports that are now available.

The Huron report, released on Monday, lacks any backup material to support their assumptions. Huron employs a very sophisticated Decision Analysis methodology to determine future costs. When I was working in private industry we used a phrase for the computer results when poor data was input to a very fine analytical model.

                  " Garbage input - results in -   Garbage output"

The costs per DC watt used for the 2012 period was from a JP Morgan Analyst report. This wildly optimistic input number comes from a financial company that cannot predict what the DOW Jones average will be next year.

Huron also states the power rate increase is only one percent. However, this is compared to some other undefined renewable power resource.  When compared to replacing coal the increase in power rates could be 3 to 4 times higher.

In these tough economic times it is irresponsible to approve funding today, for questionable multi billion dollar projects that have 50% of their work to be done in 4 or 5 years

Finally I would recommend that PA consulting have an opportunity to review Huron's report and provide their comments ASAP to the council members and the ratepayers of the city.

Thank you  

For 10 years during the largest school building program in U.S. history, the LAUSD was thwarted in its effort to install solar energy panels by the Department of Water and Power.

And not only did the DWP block all major solar efforts but it cheated the district and other government agencies out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

But the times they are changing and as part of the outrageous Measure B campaign orchestrated by and for the benefit of the DWP's union, IBEW Local 18, the DWP agreed in October to settle an 8-year-old whistleblower lawsuit for fraud and pay $160 million (in ratepayer money) to the LAUSD, community colleges, MTA, UCLA and L.A. County.

Now, LAUSD is set to put some of its $67.7 million share to work. It plans to install solar panels in eight schools to generate 3.7 megawatts of electricity -- equal to one-third of the total solar power that is being generated in all of L.A. under DWP's longstanding efforts to block renewable energy development that would end its dependence on the nation's largest portfolio of old and polluting coal-fueled power plants.

On Thursday, the LAUSD Board's Facilities Committee reviewed the plan and it goes to the full board on Tuesday.

Under the plan, a private company -- not DWP -- will install the units on Roybal Learning Center, Banning High School, Polytechnic High, Local District 5 office, Canoga Park High, Cleveland High, El Dorado Elementary and Ann Elementary.

The cost is $24 mllion: $12 million from the DWP from the settlement, $12 million from DWP for "incentives." After a staff review, SunPower Corp. (which gets its panels mainly from Malaysia, where it has three plants) was selected as the likely supplier and installer pending negotiations. LAUSD also will get the value of the energy created and the renewable energy credits that could become valuable in the years ahead.

I've got some unanswered questions about the LAUSD plan but on its face, it's everything Measure B is not.

It's being done by a private company at normal union rates -- not the bloated salaries and benefits of the IBEW.

It's being done by a company with vast experience -- not the DWP which has almost no experience in the solar field and wants to perpetuate its monopoly no matter how much it costs the public.

It's being done after extensive planning and research and approved in a public process by the appropriate authorities -- not after voters are tricked into approving a phony ballot measure that gives officials a blank check for rate hikes and is based on backroom deals and pie-in-the-sky promises.

More than anything else I have said, or could say, about what's wrong with Measure B, this is the heart of the issue.

DWP has failed us, fought against solar energy, defrauded other public agencies, ripped off the ratepayers and it's done so with the support of every official in City Hall with the exception of Controller Laura Chick who has exposed one DWP fraud after another and now says Measure B "stinks."

If it smells like corruption, looks like corruption, it probably is corruption.

Support the No on Measure B campaign with your votes and contributions. Go to nomeasureb.com and help get us clean energy and clean government. 

By Bruno
L.A.'s Watchdog

Looking for a job in this miserable economy?
This dog has a suggestion for you:  Become a political consultant.

Qualifications:  Almost none.

In fact, Bruno's decided to get off his ugly butt and join the profession.  I'd work for Zuma Dogg, who's my favorite candidate for mayor of course, but pro bone-o and he doesn't have enough money to eat, let alone the kind of cash to run an expensive television campaign that would get me 15 percent of the advertising buy -- plus a healthy write-up on production costs.

Dog Trainer columnist Steve Lopez, a star of the soon-to-disappear California section, followed up today on his poll on whether our mayor should roll up his sleeves and actually debate his opponents.  

The results were not surprising, other than the fact that there's 5,000 people still reading the Trainer anymore:

Yes: 4,728

No: 118

No opinion: 26

My guess all 118 no votes work for Antonio and drive city cars. The 26 brain-dead "no opinion" votes are geniuses who came up with Measure B.

But my favorite quote in the column - one that should be placed in the annals of political consulting forever, so it can rival the wisdom of ubiquitous pundits like the scary looking James Carville - was uttered by the mayor's campaign manager Ace Smith:  

"If you ask the question, 'Do you like ice cream,' everyone is going to say 'yes.' If you ask, 'Do you like ice cream with sand in it,' you get a different answer."

Huh?

So Bruno would like to do his own research.

What other stuff in your ice cream would make it less than appetizing?

Nails and broccoli come to mind, but go ahead and use your imagination. The winner gets to work with me on Zuma's campaign - if you all go to his blog and give him enough money to pay the bill, of course.

Woof!

Now that the Measure B solar energy scam faces mounting opposition from community and business groups, the City Hall political machine has sent smooth-talking S. David Freeman -- architect of DWP's failed green energy policies and the brains behind this ballot measure -- into the battle to turn the truth on its head.

Today, he faced a worthy challenger in KABC morning talk show host Doug McIntyre who showed that Freeman is a wizard at spinning the facts to suit his purposes but can't -- or won't -- answer any hard questions.

Simple questions like how much Measure B will cost business and resident, why there's no planning and why the process of putting this on the March 3 ballot was rushed through in three weeks without meaningful public debate or even City Council members knowing what they were voting on

You can listen to their conversation here
freeman1.mp3  
freeman2.mp3  
freeman3.mp3

What's this solar energy plan really cost? Listen to the mayor's full press conference Tuesday fumble the answer to that and other questions about Measure B
Full Press Con Measure 8 02-03-09.MP3

And don't miss McIntyre's rant about the mayor's performance
freeman-4.mp3

Here's what McIntyre had to say today in his regular Daily News column:

Green idea guarantees L.A. red ink

There's an old political clich that patriotism and

religion are the last refuge of scoundrels. It's time to add "green" to that list.

Our friendly neighborhood political machine has identified the soft underbelly of the Los Angeles electorate and every cash-grab ballot measure is now marketed in an attractive green package.

The same political machine that cooked up Measure R to undo term limits for City Council members, the same political machine that ran a bait-and- switch swindle with the cynical phony phone-tax "cut" are back for more with Measure B, the so-called "Solar Energy/ Green Jobs Initiative." With billions of Department of Water and Power dollars pouring into the hands of the mayor, City Council, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and, ultimately, the Chinese manufacturers of solar panels, Measure B has the potential to be the largest local taxpayer shakedown ever.

(Read the whole column)

Antonio  Villaraigosa's sputtering political machine has taken its best shot with Monday's release of a custom-made analysis that looks into the crystal ball of future developments and provides a statistical guess that Measure B will only add $1 a month to our electrical bills.

If they put it in writing, we should all sign up for long-term contracts. You can't beat the price, which is based on a stunning decline in estimates for the cost of solar energy from 70 cents a kilowatt to 12 cents, according to the statistical guesswork in the Huron Consulting report solar-HuronReport.pdf released Monday.
 
I'm all but certain the price will fall to nothing by March 3 if we keep up the pressure. And we won't have the nation's dirtiest air or worst traffic congestion or gang problems anymore. Kids will all learn to read and write and we'll all be rich and happy. It will just take another study.

The plain truth is nobody knows. There are too many variables and Measure B doesn't define anything beyond giving DWP a monopoly on ownership, installation and maintenance of rooftop solar units -- and even that like everything else in Measure B can be changed by a simple majority vote of the nodding heads of the City Council which has managerial control of all aspects of this boondoggle, even decisions about who gets billions of dollars in contracts.

Meanwhile, the groundswell against Measure B continued to gain momentum.

The Daily News found the Huron report unconvincing, saying:it comes down to whether you "trust" city officials.

And the.Reseda Neighborhood Council came out against B Monday night  Members of the Westchester Neigbhborhoods Association, where I spoke Monday night, were overwhelmingly supportive of the "No on B" position as well.

You can help get the word out by visiting http://nomeasureb.com/ and contributing whatever you can.

All the Yes on B campaign has is lies and deceits. The highly critical report on Measure B and the managerial failings of DWP by PA dwp-iea.pdf -- is still being suppressed like its earlier version even though it was completed two weeks ago.

David Zahniser in the L.A. TImes today reports PA Consulting was passed over for doing the solar cost analysis although it had been paid $1 million to conduct a yearlong review of all DWP operations and policies. The firm had to apologize for its criticisms of DWP and how it's analysis of the problems with the solar plan became public but even that didn't help it win the solar cost contract.

"I'm also sorry that (this) incident has caused the DWP to re-evaluate having P.A. assist in the upcoming Strategic Planning off site [meeting] and helping with the process generally. I think we were making excellent progress and that we would have added significant value in assisting you," a PA Consulting analyst wrote to DWP General Manager H. David Nahai.

in his usual smarmy way, Nahai dismissed PA Consulting: "They put out a report that was rushed, superficial and based on outdated information, and I think they want to distance themselves from it."

Controller Laura Chick the only city official who actually could pass a test on Measure B offered a different point of view, calling Nahai's decision not to select P.A. Consulting "disturbing."

"Is it that the DWP hires consultants who tell them what they want to hear and everybody else gets shut out? Because that makes me very, very nervous," she said.

As the Daily News editorialized: "This disparity between the two reports - one conducted as a requirement of the City Charter, the other one commissioned by officials selling the solar initiative - only adds to the uncertainty of the measure...Whose version are you going to believe?"

Among the many reasons the mainstream press is dying is it has such a hard time telling the truth -- a problem I've long asserted is due to the rules of modern journalism imposed by corporations for just that purpose.

A case in point is Peter Hecht's story in the Sacramento Bee today under the headline "L.A. mayor's star on the rise again as higher office beckons.

The story backs into its thesis by noting the mayor's divorce scandal, flubbed school takeover and other problems tarnished his reputation but he's back in contention in the governor's race because he's easily going to win re-election and "leading again with passion and swagger."

"Despite questions of personal character, Villaraigosa has consolidated his power with public charisma and backroom chutzpah. With a month to go before the election, he has chased away serious challengers, vacuuming up campaign dollars despite the city's $1,000-per-person limit.

"He is a powerful politician with a brand name

across the nation in political circles," said Jaime Regalado, director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles. "The perception is that he can do somebody harm if you get on his wrong side. Politicians who want a future in L.A. have pretty much decided not to challenge him."

OK, I'm being a litle unfair to Hecht, an excellent reporter whose article is filled with the negatives about Antonio Villaraigosa's leadership of the city but wraps them with a story line that makes political success more important than policy failure. 

It's easier to tell the story that way than to seriously engage how a mayor who has raised taxes, fees and rates so high has run up a $400 million-plus budget deficit and failed to even address the city's most serious problems can hold such an iron grip on power for the benefit of a few special interests over the public interest.

The rules of corporate journalism lacks a strong point of view that competitive media have so reporters must feign objectivity, pull their punch. And that usually means hiding the truth as they know it by setting up a facile thesis and leaving it to readers to figure out what they're really saying, what they know to be the truth.

Columnists like Steve Lopez, writers for alternative papers like the L.A. Weekly, bloggers aren't handcuffed like that and have an easier time saying what they mean, at least to the point the facts support it. They are free to exercise their First Amendment rights.

Sunday's story in the L.A. Times under the headline "A Villaraigose-Weiss-Greuel troika would consolidate power at L.A. City Hall" has the same problem.

It points out Weiss and Greuel are "two of his most unwavering supporters" and cites the mayor's promise to hire 1,000 new cops (failed), takeover of the schools (failed) and build a subway-to-the-sea (you should live so long).

The heart of the story is this: "If all three win March 3, the Villaraigosa-Weiss-Greuel troika would usher in a major change in mood from the current environment at City Hall, where the three citywide-elected politicians have eyed one another warily."

That sounds like a good thing, doesn't it? No more bickering, no more conflict, no more of those nasty audits exposing the endless failures of City Hall to solve L.A.'s problems, to spend the public's money prudently.

The facts of the story support a different thesis: Antonio is buiding a political machine that will continue to bleed money out of the money and pass it through to special interests that are destroying the city with densification, luxury hotels and developments, digital billboards and sweetheart contracts.

I"m not criticizing the reporters. They did their jobs well enough but faux objectivity forces them to leave it to the readers to figure out what it means. And that requires people to actually read the whole story and to actually think about it.

How many people actually do that? Not many.

I worked in that environment my whole life and pushed against the restraints. I no longer have to do that. I'm free to say what I mean as well as I can. You know where I'm coming from. You can say I'm right or wrong or whatever you want about what I write.

And that's all freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion was ever about. We haven't really exercised those rights in any meaningful way for a long time but the Internet is changing that and none too soon.

A lot of people are upset at the Times eliminating the California section but maybe they are overlooking the fact that local news is moving to the front of the paper.

Local news might be even make it to the front page more often.

The Times might even become the Los Angeles Times and take on as its mission providing a vision for the region and the journalism and commentary to back it up.

I'm a local newsman, or was for a very long time. I think that's where a local newspaper can make a real difference. It's what I tried to do at the Daily News during my 23 years there, to help make it the voice of the San Fernando Valley.

No one has been more critical of the Times than me for lacking a vision for Los Angeles, for so trying to be the New York Times West that the city, the region were of little importance to it -- the world, Washington, the nation, arts, entertainment, sports, business were what mattered. Los Angeles was just another story.

The decline of newspapers and news media, so many friends and colleagues losing their jobs -- it's a terrible thing to see.

But the Times becoming a Los Angeles newspaper could be the best thing for the city. The community needs a powerful, credible voice to stand up for the common good, the greater good, to passionately tell the stories of who we are and how we could do better.

The staff of the Times can continue to wallow in the heartache of what is gone or going or they can see the possibility of what could become.

And for the audience of newspaper readers, take a second look. The California section was never very good, never really focused in any way. Newspapers everywhere are in serious financial trouble. Almost all of them can be bought for a small fraction of their price just five years ago so drastic measures have to be taken.

Some papers will survive and it's my belief, the survivors for the most part will be those that serve their communities best by communicating the truth about what's going on in the neighborhoods and cities and standing up for what's right.

We need the Times, the Los Angeles Times, but we need it to serve us better than it has in the past..