UPDATE: David Nahai resigns as DWP general manager. Find out more at OurLA.org
Councilman Bernard Parks recently described DWP contract negotiations with the IBEW union boss Brian D’Arcy in these terms:
Bully boy D’Arcy hands the DWP officials a list of dozens of demands and gives them five minutes to give him everything he wants or he’ll take the 95 percent of the utility’s work force — including most of the managers — out on strike and throw the city into chaos.
With the city now in the worse financial crisis in its history, D’Arcy’s union is due to get a 3.25 percent pay hike this month after successive 5.9 percent increases the last two years and he’s playing hardball.
Here’s a report to members (it will take some effort to read but it’s worth it) on how he’s demanded a lump sum payment for this year and a four-year contract extension with a guarantee of 2 percent and a maximum of 4 percent if inflation returns..
That’s what D’Arcy calls “shared sacrifice” for IBEW workers who are paid 20 to 40 percent more than city workers or other utility workers who do the same job. I don’t know the exact state of the talks but I have every reason to believe this is pretty much what the deal will turn out to be.
It’s why your water and power rates are soaring and will double and triple in the coming years, why LA has the least renewable energy of any big city in California, why water mains are bursting all over town and the rest of the DWP infrastructure is old and deterioriating and dangerous.
Frankly, we are all working for the IBEW, only we don’t get the same pay and benefits — just the bill.
I thought blackmail is a crime. The DA should put this thug in jail.
Bernard Parks as head of the Budget Committee, now pretending to point fingers at others for getting us into this mess, rings pretty hollow. Why didn’t he shout loudly 2 years ago, 18 months ago? He’s also using this as an excuse to cut LAPD to slap Bratton in the face one last time as he leaves. Even the Daily News has an editorial that Koretz being the last to second-guess Bratton on how cutting the force to 9500 is clueless, and if they insist on that, revoke the trash fee increases we’re paying specifically for more not less cops. And Parks’ own pay almost $500,000 from taxpayers, between his current salary and LAPD pension.
However there’s no question that D’Arcy has way too much power and influence and we’ve had enough. We need a cost-effective way to achieve the “greener” objectives the city and DWP want.
One more reason to support Patsaouras` Rate Payers Avocate
One more reason to support Patsaouras` Rate Payers Advocate.
At the end of the first October pay period, DWP employees automatically receive the 3.25% raise because of the existing contract. D’Arcy is giving the city a second option. Yeah, he’s still trying to get as many concessions for his union as he can but the gist of it is, the union will take less money in order to have their contract extended.
The reason for the urgency is because the council only has until the October deadline to act. Once that deadline hits, the city is obligated to pay out the 3.25 and can no longer negotiate with the IBEW regarding the raise. That 3.25% compounds over the future and will cost the city more than a lump sum payout.
Another proof of City Hall`s interference in DWP affairs and the Commission`s lack of independence, regadless of what we may think of Nahai
Deputy Mayor Freeman stated in the Council Chambers a couple of weeks ago, when they were skewered on ECAF .”No need for Rate Payers Advocate. The white knight sitting next to me is the right person”
hmmmmmmm Tranparency, accountability, honesty.
D. Freeman as DWP GM.
What a travesty. God help us.
Freeman interim GM. He will have enough time to do a lot of damage.
Bye bye, E Pluribus Wastewater.
Freeman was the guy, who through a combination of buyouts and early retirements, actually shrunk the DWP workforce from over 11,000 workers to just over 7,000. In addition, he was able to put DWP on a path to be debt free. When he took over the DWP was over 4B in debt.
But, unfortunately, the pay to play stuff, orchestrated by Ron Kayes best friend, Doug Dowie, hurt his legacy there a bit.
And if you ask D`Arcy why pwr outages and water lines breaks, he will tell you because the work force went down to 7,000. I would love to hear Freeman`s explanation, now that he is on the saddle figuratively and literally, why the infrastrure is collapsing.
And if you ask D`Arcy why pwr outages and water lines breaks, he will tell you because the work force went down to 7,000. I would love to hear Freeman`s explanation, now that he is on the saddle figuratively and literally, why the infrastrure is collapsing.
Update:GM Nahai is shown the exit door.
Here is proof the DWP employees union IBEW is stronger than the mayor, city council and any DWP executive. IBEW union general manager D’Arcy help build the Solar Plan Measure B ratepayer mousetrap and blamed Nahai for not getting it approved by the now educated voters who smelled a rat. The same mouse trap return Mother of Measure B solar plan is out there ready to be jammed down our throats.
It was just a couple of months ago Deputy Mayor David Freeman sitting in on a council meeting with DWP GM Nahai and other DWP executives was asked if the city should have a non DWP employee and non government employee hired as a DWP ratepayer advocate? His reply was we don’t need a ratepayer advocate. We have the best ratepayer advocate sitting right next to me and he is DWP GM Nahai.
Now as interim DWP GM we end up with this old tired cowboy who is old schooled and taught to hide everything from the ratepayers and taxpayers. He had his chance as DWP GM years ago and left us with a broken infrastructure and old schooled handwritten technology. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Ramin Raj should be shown the exit door next. He was not honorable and released from DWP and then suddenly rehired. He obliviously knew were the bones were buried.
Ron called it first: http://ronkayela.com/2009/09/bye-bye-nahai-a-symptom-of-dwp.html
A THIEF getting caught is no good to anyone. His job is to steal from the public without them knowing it. And, he got caught. So, bye bye Nahai. The billionaire boys and the unions dumped him.
Now we have the fox watching the chicken coop!
I don’t think that Nahai had any power at all. I think that the Mayor and D’Arcy call all of the shots – that Nahai was just the figure head.
I think that David Nahai is a green. But what he really understood about the technology of today – we don’t know.
The problem is that this utility company should not be run by an attorney. It needs an engineer.
If the Mayor does not want to lose all credibility as the water lines continue to break, he will bring in the best engineer that he possibly can find. He certainly will pay the salary worthy of a king.
Wrong 10:33. The DWP needs someone who has actually run a utility. Freeman has.
Maybe it should be someone else, but it has to be someone who has utility experience and isnt just put there because he sucked up to the mayor.
Yes 10:58 PM he ran a utility. He ran DWP right into the ground. Left it with thousands of reduced employees and an infrastructure that was broken down.
Now that Freeman is on the helm, he can tell us why the infrastrucure is collapsing. D`Arcy claims it is because the staff downsizing that Freeman orchestrated. Is this true? What other reasons? He was after all GM till 2001.
There are many people besides Nahai and Freeman who are responsible for the lack of infrastructure in the City of LA.
If you want to know why the infrastructure is collapsing, it’s because of the deregulation era. Conventional wisdom back then stated all utilities would be deregulated so in an effort to prepare for that, DWP workforce was reduced and infrastructure was left alone. So D’Arcy is actually right in blaming the reduced workforce. Far as David Freeman, facing ineminent deregulation, there was really no choice but to reduce the workforce and leave the infrastructure alone. That’s just smart management. Otherwise, if deregulation happened, you’d have a ton of employees sitting around with no work to do.
The state later bailed out municipal utilities at the 11th hour (which is a good thing because look at what happened to private utilities), but DWP was still left to deal with the aftermath of the workforce reduction – neglected infrastructure and no longer enough employees to maintain it.
Personally I think Nahai’s rate hike was necessary to remedy this but the mayor is using a large chunk of the money for green energy projects (because that’s what he’s trying to define his term by) instead of for improving the infrastructure.