The DWP Board of Commissioners will meet Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. to consider some important matters such as once again raising water rates and yet again giving union boss Brian D’Arcy’s IBEW 8,000-plus members another sweetheart deal.
But you won’t find out anything about those things by going to LADWP.com (.com not .org as if it is a corporation, not a publicly-owned utility) and clicking on current agenda but it doesn’t work.
Some things like the ripping off of the public for the benefit of the few like D’Arcy are best kept private. And that includes socking ratepayers to pay for handsome paydays for the nation’s best paid utility workers even when the inflation rate is MINUS 1.7 percent and other city workers are deferring raises and taking time off without pay.
But secrets are hard to keep when you got a city of 4 million people enraged about the way things are going, particularly when it comes to paying more for less just to make some people richer. Here’s the two items you can’t find at LADWP.com
(23) Recommended by Chief Operating Officer and Chief Finanacial Officer
(Approved by Acting General Manager)
Resolution recommending approval of Water Rates Ordinance
No.. 170435 to modify General Provision T Adjustment Factor
Limitations to increase the cap from $.50 per billing unit (one billing
union equals 748 gallons) to $1.00 per billing unit beginning April 1, 2010.
Council Approval by ordinance is required.
(24) c. Conference with Labor Negotiators.
Pursuant to California Government Code Section 54957.6, the Board
will meet in closed session with its labor negotiators (the Department’s
Interim General Manager) with the following labor negotiations with the
following union representatives:
Local 18 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
(Local 18, IBEW)
Local 18, of course, is the union D’Arcy runs with the same sense of self-service he runs the DWP and chooses most city elected officials from the mayor and city controller on down.
His clout is so great that he deserves the lion’s share of credit for finally ridding us of David Nahai as DWP general manager and bringing back his own favorite, David Freeman, as interim general manager — the man who is doing the negotiating on the latest deal to pad the paychecks of the 95 percent of the workforce that are members of his union.
The agenda for Tuesday’s board meeting also included initially measures to spike the pension of Chief Operating Officer Raman Raj — another of D’Arcy’s close allies — and to funnel more than $1 million to a Sacramento lobbying firm that, like so many in the political arena, is trying to help out former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez in his time of need.
I can’t swear those two items made it from the tentative agenda to the final one since my sources are less concerned about a million here or there than the tens of millions represented by the rate hike and payoff to D’Arcy.
This is a watershed moment, so to speak, for the city.
If IBEW workers get raises when other city workers, including cops and firefighters, are giving up money, the labor unrest that will follow will bankrupt the city.
If water rates are increased even as power rates are sure to soar, tens of thousand of people soon will be paying more to the DWP than to their landlords or mortgage holders. And that will put them in the same bankrupt position as the city.
Costly in time and money as it is, it’s my suggestion that we show up at the DWP shortly after noon on Tuesday and let them know the days of ripping off the public and letting the vital infrastructure of our water and power systems rot are over.
City Hall has used the DWP as a cash cow for too long. It has declared its intention to pack our utility with other city workers who’s jobs are dispensable in these tough economic times, transfers that will actually mean they will get pay raises since the DWP pays 20 to 40 percent more for the same jobs than other city departments.
You can sit on your duff or feign ignorance but you will have nobody to blame but yourselves for letting them get away with these grand thefts.
‘Lawsuit’s comin’ round the bend.
So much for Freeman being the self proclaimed rate payer advocate. He’s got to go. While we’re at it,Estrada and his junk science evaporation quota crap has to go too. He’s no scientist.
This is the most corrupt group of people I have ever encountered. And, really, any rate payer advocate is just a waste and a farce. Whether appointed or elected, this individual will ultimately become another pawn for DWP’s bidding at the tax payers’ expense.
How else are they going to pay for the city workers they have absorbed over the last year?
They need to revisit the very basics of their contracts and our “leaders” must take a hard line approach. Per their contract, they have spread labor to the point of five people performing tasks that one or two can do. I’m told they also pay for any kind (ie doesn’t have to be work related) of education these workers wish to pursue while paying for their time off to attend classes. They are guaranteed over time-the amount of which I do not know. But, witnesses have seen employees taking turns at napping on the job.
The amount taken from paychecks doesn’t seem to add up to the type of insurance the workers receive. If I’m right, who pays the difference? One employee described all the coverage she gets and how little she pays for it. I pay quadruple that amount and I do not get anything close to the coverage she has. Maybe en masse coverage is why it costs her so little. Again, I don’t know but I’d be curious if someone can explain that to me. She pays a couple of dollars per pay check, but a lot more to the union.
I have not seen the contracts. I’m only relaying what I’ve been told.
Bankruptcy is one option. Politicians just saying “no” and proceeding with lay offs and furloughs or amending contracts (if possible) is another. We know that won’t happen.
Every time the DWP says they need the resources, that equates to more union members which equates to more money for the union to endorse and pay politicians (our tax dollars at work) to do their bidding. Every time these contract negotiations occur, there are threats of strikes. Darcy gets his way and gets more power. In my book that is extortion and the extorted are the tax payers. Clearly, we are not being represented.
If our tax dollars are paying workers to pay the union, then the “non-profit” union should not be allowed to endorse candidates or contribute to campaigns. Those “contributions” should be going into the pension fund instead. In addition, rate hikes and “penalties” are illegal taxes in my book.
I realize I don’t understand all the ins and outs of this, but something is terribly wrong and we cannot count on the politicians or the unions to bat for us. I’d like to see an outsider comb through these contracts and Council votes to point out all the padding and enabling that occurs in place of the services that are supposed to be rendered.
If legal, I’d like to see a ballot initiative that disallows unions to endorse and make campaign contributions. That is our tax dollars they are playing with and we should have a say. In addition, legal action may have to occur to stop the corruption. All the existing legal checks and balances seem to be in the unions’ pockets. With our luck, however, the judges might just be there too.
Perhaps it’s just a lost cause.
You can depend on D. Freeman to set his buddy D`Arcy straight. He is after all the ratepayer advocate.
Of course if you want classic napping on the job, (but not lactation training!) the experts are the ILWU – two “partners” clock in, one goes home for 4 hours, then returns to the work site and the first one goes home – both get 8 hours of pay guaranteed, even if neither picks up a pencil, let alone is involved in loading or unloading a ship.
Of course, that’s OK, since their paycheck is not funded directly by taxpayers, only by purchasers of goods – but wait those are taxpayers too, well, except for the illegals and the under-the-counter workers.
Of course if you want classic napping on the job, (but not lactation training!) the experts are the ILWU – two “partners” clock in, one goes home for 4 hours, then returns to the work site and the first one goes home – both get 8 hours of pay guaranteed, even if neither picks up a pencil, let alone is involved in loading or unloading a ship.
Of course, that’s OK, since their paycheck is not funded directly by taxpayers, only by purchasers of goods – but wait those are taxpayers too, well, except for the illegals and the under-the-counter workers.
The Commissioners are working overtime demonstrating the urgent need for an independent Rate Payers Advocate.
As Raman Raj, he should be shown the door given his lack of experience and expertise in addition to the fact that he was shown the door for inappropriate behavior several years ago.
Council knows we are paying for far more than the cost of services rendered. This ratepayer’s “advocate” will just be their reason(and scapegoat)to vote for what Freeman, Estrada and Darcy want. Anything leftover will pay for their pathetic pension vote, thus ensuring that we pay for it (as opposed to the “Brotherhood”).
Who appoints this person who is to represent the rate payers?
Council knows we are paying for far more than the cost of services rendered. They don’t need someone to tell them (and us) that we are being robbed. This ratepayer’s “advocate” will just be their reason (and scapegoat) to vote for what Freeman, Estrada and Darcy want. Anything leftover will pay for their pathetic pension vote, thus ensuring that we pay for it (as opposed to the “Brotherhood”).
Who appoints this person who is to represent the rate payers?
Council knows we are paying for far more than the cost of services rendered. This ratepayer’s “advocate” will just be their reason(and scapegoat)to vote for what Freeman, Estrada and Darcy want. Anything leftover will pay for their pathetic pension vote, thus ensuring that we pay for it (as opposed to the “Brotherhood”).
Who appoints this person who is to represent the rate payers?
Sorry about the same three comments in a row. Ron, the “submit” click brought me to a “sorry Charlie, no can do” page.
I wonder if that’s why we sometimes see repeated comments from others too.
Sincerely,
Anonymous
1- Those bastards!
2- I thought that last week the city council told DWP to stick their rate hike where the sun don’t shine.
3- Fifty-cent a unit to $1 a unit is double; even my LAUSD math can figure that out. No one double their rates, not even C.J.s when they add an extra patty to their burgers.
We are dealing with criminals and usury charges.
Thanks Hanks, for illustrating how “Let the buyer beware” can have unintended consequences. In order to save money by avoiding more pricy, domestic goods (such as those produced by members of various labor unions and shipped by others) US consumers drift to offshore manufacturers…only to have yet another labor union assess their own tariff.
As with the DWP, you have one union monopolizing things.
As for reform ‘8:50’, as much as the LAUSD and its unions negotiate by vilifying each other, United Teachers Los Angeles has enough members who are disgusted with their leadership representing interests contrary to some dues-payers for there to be limitations and opt out rules governing how dues can be used for political purpose.
This may only be possible because of frustration resulting from similar prohibitions proposed via initiative not passing, but the key is fostering groundswells of union members uniting to reform their own collective.
As long as Local 18 is able to keep turning the nightmarish stranglehold over the DWP sweet dreams for its members, that won’t happen.
Unless…while some think Los Angeles as a city is “too big to fail”…but what about the DWP?
At what point will councilmembers decide between the baby (City Budget) and the bathwater (DWP misappropriations).
“Looking forward” to an expert opinion from a Consultant well versed in avoiding bankruptcy (by leveraging debt to buy influence), and searching for the latest news from California’s erstwhile utility-scam czar, Keith Brackpool, what should pop up but a 2001 story about Freeman’s then pending appointment by Gray Davis to a proposed state power authority, wherein our peer-review-less DWP leader is quoted: “frankly I think everyone understands that the L.A. DWP is in great shape now. They don’t need me.”*
http://articles.latimes.com/2001/apr/17/news/mn-51946
(*Infrastructure notwithstanding, as long as he had good PR by coal powering his way through the brown- out era?)
Fortunately, Edison, PG&E and San Diego Gas & Electric were able to prevent a wholesale takeover by the state. Or worse…“The governor joked that his “fallback plan, if all else fails, is to have the Department of Water and Power annex the rest of the state, and we’ll all be served by the Department of Water and Power, and we’ll have low rates, and I won’t worry about it.””
And finally, “But as reaction poured in to his pending resignation, it was obvious Monday that he still has enemies.
“The sooner the better,” said Councilman Nate Holden, who has strongly criticized Freeman for, among other things, trying to sell a city-owned, coal-burning power plant in the Mojave Desert. “He should leave right away.””
El Quixotian, I gotta ask. Are you Ron Kaye?
Other than that, you have your cause and effect mixed up.
The state wasn’t trying to take over PG&E, SDG&E and Edison. Those private utilities did get screwed to the point of bankruptcy as a result of a poorly constructed deregulation plan.
Municipal utiliies were supposed to be deregulated as well, which is why Freeman cut the workforce and left the infrastructure alone. This is infrastructure the city was not supposed to own after deregulation went through. Deregulation involved selling off of generating stations. Hence why Freeman was trying to get rid of the coal plant.
At the 11th hour, the state later exempt municipal utilities from deregulation which in one respect was good because look at what happened to private utiliies.
Yet in another respect it’s bad because now LADWP is currently dealing with the neglected infrastructure it thought it wouldn’t have and replacing the reduced workforce it thought it wouldn’t need.
Freeman takes credit for LADWP being saved on his watch because he’s an egomaniac. He wishes he was that powerful
7:15, Surely, you flatter?
While Ron Kay, Jack Humphreville, many others on this site, and in dialog regarding issues in this city would warrant with great honor inclusion to the annals of any officially endorsed Los Angeles edition of El Quixotian, they are only indirectly influential to the authorship of these opinions.
It should be noted that certain concerns, such as the suspicious relationships between Mr. Brackpool and water policy makers in California, predate any such acquaintance.
That being said, your greater nuance brought to the causal complexity of the topics of deregulation, the financial difficulties of the private utilities, and the reposting of discussion of the pragmatic decisions made regarding infrastructure are appropriate. However, please note that the attempted brevity of the parenthetical reference was due to the primary focus; broaching the subject of reorganizing the DWP as an alternative to Metropolitical Bankruptcy, while highlighting the unfortunate glibness of Davis and Freeman.
It’s doubtful that the problematic deferred maintenance for water NOR power was attributable merely to deregulation concerns, nor exacerbated purely during Freeman’s watch. However, as illustrated when typical PG&E backlogs were presumed as a Liability following a widespread blackout in San Francisco on the last weekend of holiday shopping a few years back, the issue should not be ignored, particularly if the problem is proposed to be passed to California taxpayers.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/12/22/MNGRI3SA0V1.DTL&type=printable
El Quixotian,
I really couldn’t tell, you both write in a similar authoritative manner. Anyway, I don’t like Freeman but if I had to pick one factor that influenced why DWP’s power infrastructure is the way it is right now, I’d pick deregulation and the planning that led up to it. There are obviously other contributing factors but the impact of deregulation is unmistakable in my opinion and it could have been a lot worse.
And this is only regarding the power side. When it comes to water mains flooding, I have no idea what’s going on there.
11:52
“And this is only regarding the power side…”
You’re right about deregulation, that’s been a mess from the git go.
“When it comes to water mains flooding, I have no idea what’s going on there.”
Well, as good cousin Ron suggests, LAWC had skeletons in the watercloset long before it was Departmentalized and emPowered….
Whither the Chandler cabal and the Owen’s loss to ‘Angeles, Mulholland’s engineering prowess is remarkable, though tragically impugned by the dam burst which is still blamed on anything from shoddy engineering and concrete despited recent technological snapshots suggesting the ‘soft shoulder’ really was due to a prehistoric subterranean landlide.
But back to today’s mystery of yesterday’s pipes…you can take your pick of electricians digging ditches, surface pressure irregularities due to drying out between two allowed weekdays of watering, or even gorebal warming. But we can’t forget that ever since the Harmonic Convergence, we’ve been counting down to the Mayan Calendar’s ‘end of days’!
Could not find a suitable section so I written here, how to become a moderator for your forum, that need for this?
It looks like we have agnate account on this sbuject.
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