Bullshit.
I don’t know how to put it more delicately than that. But that’s the only word that comes to mind when the mayor parades forth with union boss Maria Elena Durazo and some environmentalists and announces massive rate hikes for electricity of up to 28 percent targeted at single family homes. And that’s just this year. Next year will be worse and the years following even worse.
It’s a con job, a snow job, all hot air. It’s a fantasy story built around one lie after another.
The issue he should be addressing isn’t the rising cost of fossil fuels and the even higher cost of green energy. Those are real and must be addressed and they undoubtedly require somewhat higher rates both to reflect costs and to pressure us all to use less electricity.
The issue is the Department of Water and Power, its long-term mismanagement, its failure to plan for the future, its decade-long resistance to going green, its total lack of transparency, its outrageous payroll costs, its giveaways of fortunes of ratepayer money and its sloppy contracting processes.
That’s just for openers.
Let’s start at the top.
Rubber-stamping of poorly conceived policies and plans by the DWP Commission must end and a new commission put into place that has independence and expertise and the authority to create a Rate Payer Advocate to protect the public and penetrate the wall of obfuscations and deceits used by management to hide the truth.
No one bears greater responsibility for what’s wrong with the DWP today than interim General Manager David Freeman.
A decade ago he was fired as GM by then Mayor Richard Riordan for good cause, not the least of which was his initiating the largest solar energy program in U.S. history, a program that produced negligible power while squandering tens of millions of dollars.
He is a man who will say and do anything at this point in his life without regard to the truth, the reason no doubt Antonio Villaraigosa resurrected him as his energy chief and now head of the DWP. He has been tied financially to the Villaraigosa’s eminence noir and fund-raiser Ari Swiller among other green energy profiteers that surround the mayor.
Freeman makes deposed GM David Nahai, now a legal consultant on energy, look good. His promised six months is up and he must be replaced by someone of stature, integrity and independence before any significant rate increases are contemplated.
Whatever happened to “shared sacrifice,” does it not apply to the DWP? Why should the public pay more when the mayor has given raises up to nearly 6 percent to overpaid DWP employees and even in these deflationary times of economic hardship are still getting raises of up to 4 percent a year for the next four years?
Let’s see union bully boy Brian D’Arcy match every dollar ratepayers have to pay with equal dollars in union givebacks.
Of course that’s unthinkable since he has most everyone at City Hall scared to death of him and his threats of retaliation and strikes.
The blackmailed contracts D’Arcy has gotten along with the annual transfers of so-called “surplus” electricity revenue is why the DWP is in financial straits. The transfer, raised by Villaraigosa from 5 to 8 percent, comes on top of the 10 percent electricity tax and amounts to more than $200 million a year.
The report on DWP by PA Consulting(IEA-summary.doc)(IEA-excerpts.doc) that was suppressed more than a year ago provided a detailed indictment of the utility’s management. The new report by PA Consulting that is being used to justify this new round of rate hikes is even more damning.
You will see just how damning if you read the Conclusions and Findings
(PA-ECAF-Findings.rtf). Jack Humphreville, head of the DWP Advocacy (and Watchdog) Committee, has provided a series of articles at CityWatchLA on the report.
The gist of the report is the DWP lacks a coherent long-term plan to meet artificial green energy targets that are immensely costly and are using the Energy Cost Adjustment Factor to hide the real costs to the public.
The report says DWP is desperate for more money immediately, mainly to avoid embarrassing the mayor for failing to meet the 20 percent renewable goal he set to make himself look good politically. To do that, the DWP has incurred huge costs paying premium prices to buy wind and solar on the open market wherever it can.
The 40 percent goal the mayor set for 2020 is even more costly and unrealistic.
LADWP does not currently have a plan to go beyond this 20% level,” the report says.
“However, using a project build plan based on a budget issued by the Department in May 2009, the cost of reaching a 25% level was estimated at an additional $124 million per year, or 0.5 cents/kWh in rates. This would have an additional $2.50 impact on the average residential customer bill. Moving from 25% to 40% introduces even more uncertainty. Extrapolating these cost impacts to the 40% RPS level, PA has estimated a potential additional cost impact of $400 million per year.”
The costs just keep piling up and show why all the mayor is talking about now is the next 12 months. In fact, it is a certainty that rates will be doubling and tripling and DWP salaries will keep on soaring.
And you won’t have a clue about who’s paying and who’s profiteering unless there are dramatic changes in the way DWP is run.
That means a complete overhaul of management, rate structures and policies.
What the mayor is proposing is a continuation of failure and deceit. That’s why I say bullshit to his plan. What do you say? What do you think the DWP Commission and the City Council will say?
The Mayor is proposing a RPA. Why this change of heart? Another brand of snake oil……….
Ron, I don`t want you to have a heart attack, but your buddy D`Arcy is pushing hard for Raz Raman to be appointed as the GM. Don`t forget. What D`Arcy wants, D`Arcy gets.
The RPA the Mayor is proposing will work in the Controller’s Office. Now how independent will the RPA be with Greuel having accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign money from D’Arcy controlled funds.
Deliclate isn’t in my nature when it comes to being robbed on electrically charged issues. I’d put it an indelicate compound word: Effinbullshit.
After all the money they robbed us of, we shouldn’t have to fork over any more. This business of paying more for using less, and them picking the most expensive way to go green is pure, unadulterated bullshit!
If the clowncil members got up off their lazy asses and actually started to sound like leaders speaking on behalf of the people, just maybe, we have a chance to stop this BULLSHIT!!!! Many of them are up for re election the even number seats. Everyone should start emailing their council person and neighborhood groups to put the pressure on them to VOTE NO. Where’s Walter??? Can’t we file a class action lawsuit for the corruption behind this bullshit of a raise??? If the entire city council voted NO that would definitely send a message plus get all the NC”s to submit a negative impact statement. Has any NC’s even agendized this issue?
If the clowncil members got up off their lazy asses and actually started to sound like leaders speaking on behalf of the people, just maybe, we have a chance to stop this BULLSHIT!!!! Many of them are up for re election the even number seats. Everyone should start emailing their council person and neighborhood groups to put the pressure on them to VOTE NO. Where’s Walter??? Can’t we file a class action lawsuit for the corruption behind this bullshit of a raise??? If the entire city council voted NO that would definitely send a message plus get all the NC”s to submit a negative impact statement. Has any NC’s even agendized this issue?
Where Walter is: Walter sent public comment via email to the City Council Committee that is meeting on this very issue at 3:00 p.m. today.
There’s a link at my site, along with an explanation of how the math does not add up.
And I tell you, usually lawsuits are a horrible way to deal with stuff like this, but I will seriously consider it if they push this through. This is just a job-killing, Constitution-trampling, middle-class-crushing taxpayer rip-off. WE ALREADY VOTED THIS DOWN LAST YEAR.
They don’t get to just ignore the State Constitution by invoking the word “solar.”
http://WalterMooreSays.com
Maybe it is Darcy who pays for the Mayor’s Italian suits and fine wining and dining.
Remember those who were supporting Measure B in 2009.
Senate Pro Tempore Darrel Steinberg, Speaker of the Assembly Karen Bass, Ed Begley, MARIA ELENA DURAZO, LA League of Conservation Voters (ID #810317), and the Sierra Club with
David Allgood, Tim Carmichael, Dario Frommer, Mark Gold, Alberto Mendoza, Rhonda Mills, Matt Petersen, Martin Schlageter, Mitchell Schwartz, Charlie Stringer, V. John White
Invite you to join them to support
Yes on Measure B
Host Committee – Raise $1000
Gold Sponsor – $500
Single Ticket – $125
Friday, February 20, 2009
6:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M.
At the Home of Rica and Jon Orszag
Mayor Villaraigosa
Executive Directive No. 1
Ethics in Government
July 5, 2005
This article is worth reading in its entirety and come up with your own conclusions.
City Council Adopts New Ethics Rules
By Patrick Mcgreevy
July 06, 2005
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the Los Angeles City Council took steps Tuesday to tighten ethics standards to prevent city commissioners and other officials from misusing their power for political or financial gain.
The actions came as an ethics expert and others questioned the propriety of Villaraigosa’s inaugural gala, which allowed firms that have business before city officials to spend up to $100,000 to attend. The money from Thursday’s event went to a publicly funded charity that is run out of the mayor’s office.
The ethics reforms enacted by the mayor and council were praised by good government advocates as long overdue. But several, including Michael Josephson, president of the Josephson Institute of Ethics in the Los Angeles area, were troubled by the mayor’s decision to host a fundraiser that collected money from developers, city contractors and lobbyists, among others.
“They are giving the money to the charity to please the mayor,” Josephson said. “You ought not be soliciting anything from anybody who wants something from you.”
Villaraigosa based much of his successful campaign against Mayor James K. Hahn on his pledge to clean up City Hall and ensure that contributions were not influencing city decisions. Federal and county grand juries continue to look into whether city contracts were tied to Hahn’s political fundraising.
On Tuesday, the City Council adopted four new laws aimed at issues raised by the grand jury probes, including a ban on city commissioners participating in the process of evaluating and recommending city contracts that their commissions will eventually vote on.
There were complaints that some Hahn commissioners met with bidders for contracts at the same time they were raising money for him, creating an impression that bidders had to “PAY TO PLAY.”
The council also banned commissioners Tuesday from earning money to lobby City Hall, and it required paid campaign consultants and fundraisers to register with the city Ethics Commission and take classes on campaign finance rules.
The council also required lobbyists to file their quarterly activity reports online to make it easier for the public to follow their actions.
“I believe the reforms passed today will hold political appointees and politicians to the highest ethical standards,” said Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, who wrote some of the changes.
Villaraigosa appeared before the council to urge support for the measures, saying he understood that some Angelenos viewed City Hall with suspicion. “I’m committed to making the changes necessary for local government to earn the public’s trust back,” he said.
Separately, the mayor signed an executive directive Tuesday that requires his staff and his appointees to commissions to attend annual ethics training and sign an ethics pledge. He also ordered commissioners to excuse themselves from voting on matters in which they have a conflict of interest and to notify the Ethics Commission and the mayor’s office of every such recusal.
The issue came up recently in connection with the president of the Harbor Commission, Nicholas Tonsich, who removed himself from several votes on issues that posed a conflict of interest but failed to notify the Ethics Commission of his recusals.
Villaraigosa also named Thomas Saenz, a former attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, as his top legal advisor and ethics officer. Hahn had an attorney who served as a deputy mayor and advised him but did not carry the same title. Riordan was the last mayor to have his own chief legal counsel.
“Let’s be clear. Honesty and ethics in City Hall start at the top,” Villaraigosa said in his first news conference at City Hall. “We are the public’s servants. We must set a higher benchmark by our actions to restore the public’s faith and trust in local government. Today, we have begun to do just that.”
However, Josephson and others raised concerns about the black-tie gala dinner at which dozens of businesses paid up to $100,000 each for their executives to attend the exclusive event with the new mayor at the Music Center. The dinner raised about $2 million for LA’s BEST, a city-funded after-school program that serves 130 elementary schools.
One of the $100,000 donors was L.A. Arena Co., owned by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz, who is also co-owner of Staples Center.
The company signed an agreement with the city in 2001 to participate in building a $1-billion entertainment and shopping district near the Los Angeles Convention Center. The project will include a 55-story hotel that would receive up to $177 million in city subsidies.
An affiliated entity, Anschutz Entertainment Group, is hoping to win approval from the mayor and the City Council for the final subsidy agreement in the next three months.
Josephson said he was troubled that businesses, at the behest of the mayor, were donating to a charity just before the mayor and the council were expected to take action on issues affecting those businesses.
“Whenever a person in power asks for something from someone they have power over, the person asked does not have complete freedom to say no,” Josephson said. “The concern is, whenever a company pays for anything, there is a reason: Either it is trying to curry favor or avoid punishment.”
The headquarters of LA’s BEST is in a City Hall suite assigned to the mayor’s office, and the program is largely financed through the city budget by the mayor.
Villaraigosa bristled when asked at his news conference whether the public should be troubled by the special-interest donations to the gala. “They should never be concerned when people are willing to support children in need and their after-school programs,” he said. “Without that public-private partnership, thousands of kids wouldn’t have an after-school program.”
But Gerald Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino and a Villaraigosa supporter, said the mayor should consider disqualifying himself from acting on issues involving big donors to the city-run charity. “It’s fine to use the bully pulpit to raise money for a charity, as long as he doesn’t weigh in on the decision,” Silver said.
When asked Tuesday whether L.A. Arena Co.’s donation to his favorite charity would affect his decision on the hotel subsidy, Villaraigosa said, “Absolutely not.”
Hahn proposed an ethics reform that would have prohibited city contractors and bidders from fundraising for or contributing to charities and campaign funds on behalf of elected officials.
The practice, Hahn said in a February 2004 letter, “creates the potential perception that fundraising influences the contracting” approval process.
Villaraigosa has not taken a position on the measure, which remains stalled in the City Council.
Besides the lucrative hotel subsidy, the mayor’s office could help Anschutz financially in other ways.
Another Anschutz company owns a pipeline through the city that is required to have a city franchise. In addition, the Department of Water and Power board voted last month to pay $300 million to Anschutz Pinedale Corp. in Denver to buy a portion of the company’s natural gas reserves in Wyoming.
“We’ve been big supporters of Antonio’s and have had a great relationship for years,” said Michael Roth, an Anschutz spokesman.
Others currently seeking favorable action from City Hall who bought tables at Villaraigosa’s dinner include developer J.H. Snyder, who is seeking approval of large commercial and residential developments in the San Fernando Valley, and Cerrell Associates, a lobbying firm with clients seeking City Hall approvals.
Don Schultz, a City Hall watchdog and president of the Van Nuys Homeowners Assn., said the practice sounded to him like “pay to play,” even though the money was going to a charity.
“Any company that spends that kind of money for a city event when it has business pending before the city, you have to wonder if it passes the smell test,” he said.
L.A. Times
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jul/06/local/me-mayor6
Ethics in Government
http://mayor.lacity.org/stellent/groups/electedofficials/@myr_ch_contributor/documents/contributor_web_content/lacity_mayors_003960.pdf
My only question is where is Cooley on all this. All his resources must have been spent on getting that old man out of Switzerland, so he is no longer a threat to LA.
Who believes the Mayor’s office poll numbers that 64% supported this bullshit? I don’t and I don’t think anyone else does. When the media is questioning this then there is definitely a scam going down. Eric Spillman KTLA has this posted.
“”"”Sounds reasonable… $2.50 a month doesn’t seem like a whole lot. One little problem, though: the average DWP customer will be paying a whole lot more than that… which is something you won’t find in the Mayor’s press release. And it’s something his Deputy Mayor isn’t talking about either.The current surcharge is 5.09 cents per Kilowatt hour. If the Mayor gets his way, that goes up to 7.79 cents.And that increases the average residential customer’s monthly payments $11 to $14 over the course of a year. That’s a 16-21% increase in the average customer’s bill.
hi, saw you on bing, really like the site. keep up the solid work!
And double-bullshit, Ron. The surveys always get manipulated by the Mayor and staff. They rely on a stated percent that say that WANTED FEE HIKES, as Tony said last year, too, at the Budget Meeting at City Hall, “You responded that you wanteed to pay more for trash collection fees to get more polices,” is used to justify his concocted goals. The actual numbers in any survey are not really representative of anything other than what those answering have stated.
Tony is the prime example of the observation, “Statistics don’e lie, but liars use statistic.” For that reason I did not fill out the budget survey other than to note it is being used to represent whatever they want and intend to do, and it is thus bogus.
I still am not able to see how they can take out cash from DWP, pay a different-world’s bonus pay scale to employees and have little accountablity to the Council or the public and then say “We need more money, the rates have to go up.” Well, actually they are not saying that, the 11% Mayor is. They just tell him when to say it. And isn’t this all on HIS OWN timetable?
They are jackasses, or maybe just “Mules”- (•hybrid offspring of a male donkey and a female horse; usually sterile.)
If you get the mayor’s Facebook blurbs, you’ll know he’s selling this as a means to create more green jobs and lower our oil dependence. These are the kind of lies that will cause a lack of respect and credibility to any environmental actions – when this kind of political leech latches on to legitimate movements to line his pocket and uphold their falling career. When has this crackpot, the mayor of the car culture capital of the world ever cared about setting a different example when it comes to oil dependence? He’s years behind in transit and bike issues!He parades around in an SUV and his staff drives Hummers. Please! When are the pitchforks and torches coming out – when you get that first 28% increase in your DWP bill?
And this is the reason, you never believe politicians and agree to their call to raise taxes/raises. They don’t have a clue or choose to ignore the enormous waste/mismanagement of resources within city hall. Till this is sorted out which will never happen, NO MORE INCREASES OF ANY KIND.
Why should the public pay more when the mayor has given raises up to nearly 6 percent to overpaid DWP employees and even in these deflationary times of economic hardship are still getting raises of up to 4 percent a year for the next four years?A decade ago he was fired as GM by then Mayor Richard Riordan for good cause,
It was under Riordan that the mayor gained the right to fire GM’s to begin with. Because of him, the DWP GM is now a puppet who has to please the mayor to keep his job and DWP is now a politicized entity when it should have been a service with independent leadership. This has allowed the current mayor to use it as a PR tool for himself as well as a small bailout fund for the city.
Personally I think this is the underlying problem with DWP – it’s politicized. And honestly Nahai was actually a better leader than you guys give him credit for. He was just stuck with a bullshit job. Generally it doesn’t even matter who you throw in there after Freeman because if in leading the Department, he butts heads with the mayor, he’ll get fired.
sorry for the italics up top. let me try again
Why should the public pay more when the mayor has given raises up to nearly 6 percent to overpaid DWP employees and even in these deflationary times of economic hardship are still getting raises of up to 4 percent a year for the next four years?
The mayor? Or the council? Who actually negotiates these union contracts?
A decade ago he was fired as GM by then Mayor Richard Riordan for good cause,
It was under Riordan that the mayor gained the right to fire GM’s to begin with. Because of him, the DWP GM is now a puppet who has to please the mayor to keep his job and DWP is now a politicized entity when it should have been a service with independent leadership. This has allowed the current mayor to use it as a PR tool for himself as well as a small bailout fund for the city.
Personally I think this is the underlying problem with DWP – it’s politicized. And honestly Nahai was actually a better leader than you guys give him credit for. He was just stuck with a bullshit job. Generally it doesn’t even matter who you throw in there after Freeman because if in leading the Department, he butts heads with the mayor, he’ll get fired.
Politicians like Villaraigosa want to call themselves green without any real accomplishment. In reality, the Mayor will siphon the rate increase to cover up his mistakes.
He has really demonstrated his corrupt nature giving his friend, Wally Knox a $200,000 gift of a job and then taking a European trip on DWP ratepayer’s expense and saying that he didn’t use any money from the general fund.
This proposal is putting the cart before the horse but not presenting a real transparent plan and work it out with the stakeholders.
Instead they are raising rates first and then figuring out something (probably behind closed doors) later.
Leave the rates alone and cutback expenses.
Run DWP more like a business rather than a slush fund.
One poster said that the Mayor is saying (on Facebook) that this initiative will reduce reliance on foreign oil.
This is preposterous. DWP does not burn imported fuel oil. They use natural gas in LA County, Coal and Nuclear in out-of-state and have a small percentage in hydro.
Did I read (somewhere) that DWP/Freeman wants to install 80 acres of solar panels in Owens Valley at a cost of 50 million dollars to provide 1.5 million homes with power?
If so, that’s hardly a return on the investment.
Wouldn’t it cost less to pay those homes to install their own solar?
He is doomed. He has lost control, respect, and authority. Sad, considering the promise. The council is indifferent and defiant to his initiatives, and it will get worse.
DWP is over 100 years old and used to have a good reputation as a leader in new technologies and sound business practices. That changed about 20 years ago when it became over politicized.
Its hard to believe what they did (and got away with). With the original Aqueduct conceived and executed by William Mulholland and in 1970, a second Aqueduct was built. On the electrical side, DWP thought ahead, first with hydro power tied into the Aqueduct, then with local power plants and a “state of the art” high voltage DC transmission line to the Pacific Northwest.
DWP ended up looking pretty in the 2001 California electrical power crisis because then Mayor Riordan could not overcome the rules and bureaucracy to sell off its generating capacity. Los Angeles had excess capacity.
Today, all that is threatened with the continued bleeding of funds from DWP and with this haphazard approach to going green. In such a rush to meet a self imposed deadline, the DWP is going to waste money for the taxpayers, causing rates to rise without anything to show for it.
Did I read (somewhere) that DWP/Freeman wants to install 80 acres of solar panels in Owens Valley at a cost of 50 million dollars to provide 1.5 million homes with power?
If so, that’s hardly a return on the investment.
Wouldn’t it cost less to pay those homes to install their own solar?
It’s not that clear cut. First of all, there’s a mandated RPS that needs to be reached in order to not be penalized by the state. Even with incentives, it’s not feasible to assume homeowners would voluntarily install enough solar panels to collectively generate enough energy to cover even 10% of the DWP portfolio. Meanwhile 33% is needed by 2020. Thus the need for outbasin solar, wind and geothermal
Thank you March 16, 2010 10:45 PM for your reply.
I understand the issue of the mandated RPS, but please consider the following:
My neighbor paid approx 30 thousand to install solar in his home (a very large home).
At 50 million dollars for 1.5 million homes, how about giving 30 thousand dollars to 1.65 million homes? That’s 150 thousand more homes, without trashing Owens Valley and there’d be some change left over.
“At 50 million dollars for 1.5 million homes, how about giving 30 thousand dollars to 1.65 million homes? That’s 150 thousand more homes, without trashing Owens Valley and there’d be some change left over.”
AND that’s a helluva lot of jobs created selling, making, delivering and installing all those racks, panels and inverters! Yep, makes too much sense. Will never happen.
My neighbor paid approx 30 thousand to install solar in his home (a very large home).
At 50 million dollars for 1.5 million homes, how about giving 30 thousand dollars to 1.65 million homes? That’s 150 thousand more homes, without trashing Owens Valley and there’d be some change left over.
I don’t know the official reason. A ton of legal issues would arise though because DWP would now be subsidizing public construction on private property. Because of the money involved, the work would also have to go out to bid and the driving force would be the 2020 deadline.
I’ll also point out that using your example, if you wanted to install solar panels on 1.5 million homes by 2020, that would be 410 houses a day. Couple this with all the planning, obtaining of permits, materials procurement, contractors failing to meet deadlines, and potential private property issues (IE uncooperative homeowners, homes failing inspection, pets, etc), and that’s a pretty difficult quota. Even if you reduced it to 50 homes a day, whoever managed that project would still be doomed to fail.
This is starting to look like “Tony Villar’s Special Interest Telethon”, where he seekes to raise cash for his political cronies, whether they may be Ari Swiller, Boss D’Arcy, County Federation of Labor, Keith Brackpool, IBEW and more.
One gets the impression that this “utility tax hike”, combine with his “30 to 10 Plan” for public transit, is a scheme to put cash into the hand of his political friends before the end of his reign in 2013.
Scott Johnson in CD 14.
This is starting to look like “Tony Villar’s Special Interest Telethon”, where he seekes to raise cash for his political cronies, whether they may be Ari Swiller, Boss D’Arcy, County Federation of Labor, Keith Brackpool, IBEW and more.
One gets the impression that this “utility tax hike”, combine with his “30 to 10 Plan” for public transit, is a scheme to put cash into the hand of his political friends before the end of his reign in 2013.
Scott Johnson in CD 14.
Good news: Zine, Parks and Smith have all said “NO” to Villaraigosa’s plan to hike our DWP rates by $648 million per year.
Gold stars for all three men. Time for the rest of the City Council to get with the program and side with the people.
Why does not anyone in this city have the guts to throw this human waste out.
Why does not anyone in this city have the guts to throw this human waste out.
Why does not you have the edumacation to speak proper English?
Went to LAUSD. I can write in Spanish.
The mayor is a little weak womanizer.The DWP is the #1 corrupt crooks in los angeles plus they are cowards.
Self catering holiday rentals in the Balearic Islands.