There never was a doubt about what the mayor and the City Council were going to do to bail themselves out of the crisis they created.
The DWP was always the answer.
Where else could they turn in their desperate need for big bucks than the most wasteful and politicized agency in city government, the cash cow that keeps the public in the dark and can raise rates spectacularly without even needing approval of anyone but the Board of Commissioners, a rubber-stamp group accountable to no one except the mayor who has made it clear that obedience to his orders is mandatory or you’re out.
The true crime of Antonio Villaraigosa and his current henchman Chief of Staff Jeff Carr is that they have put every department head in City Hall and every commissioner on notice that they will be fired if they get the least bit out of line, dare to tell the truth instead of lie, actually try to fix things instead of sweeping them under the carpet.
This is Antonio’s City Hall, everyone in it is complicit. The daily City Council meetings are nothing but a charade, a pretense of debate when they will all go along with the plan to borrow billions, sell off the assets, pack the DWP and other special funds with unneeded workers and stick the public with the bills.
Inside the bubble of false consciousness of City Hall, there is no awareness everyone in LA is hurting. More than a quarter of the people are jobless or underemployed, homes are worth 60 percent of their value, foreclosures are at record levels and so are business bankruptcies.
But all they can see is themselves. The City Hall “family” is all that matters, the people are nothing.
They drool at the prospect of bleeding the public dry for water and power. Every two months that DWP bill comes to every house and every business. That’s where the money is, money for the taking to pay the ridiculously inflated salaries of the DWP, to pay for their featherbedding of the one agency that keeps on hiring even when others are losing their jobs.
While the heads of the Harbor and Airport have cautiously opened a few jobs despite the sharp declines in their revenue, the jaded David Freeman has publicly promised to create hundreds, maybe even thousands of jobs to create room for civilian city workers who will get giant pay raises to join the DWP even as he mercilessly pushes for giant rate increases.
On Friday, OurLA.org revealed the DWP consultant’s report that calls for an 800 percent increase on April 1 of the pass-through Energy Cost Adjustment Factor which is now limited to 1 percent a quarter.
It’s the first step toward more than a 20 percent increase in power rates in the next 12 months. Next year, the rate hikes will be even worse and they will double and triple in the years ahead.
It’s the mayor’s doing. He talks a green game but he hasn’t done anything to create green energy or even develop a plan to do so.
The DWP has a wretched record for wind and solar energy despite
squandering millions of dollars and now it is desperate for money to buy
renewables at premium prices from companies that have it so it can meet
the state-mandated goal of 20 percent by year’s end.
The main
reason for the lack of renewables is long-term opposition from union
bully Brian D’Arcy whose members are paid 30 to 40 percent premiums and
just got raises of up to 4 percent for the next four years despite the
city’s financial crisis.
Today, we learn even rate hikes are not
enough. The mayor also wants a
$2.50 a month surcharge from every customer, surcharges that are
sure to rise rapidly once established.
The vehicle for
disseminating this proposal is the mayor’s dishonestly named Committee
for Government Excellence and Accountability. It should be called the
Committee for Political Corruption and Public Deceit.
It is
nothing but a slush fund for developers to buy “access,” which is why
they have poured
$4 million into it in recent years, money that helped fund the notorious
group ACORN, to fight for the failed Measure B solar energy plan
and pass the mayor’s illegal takeover of the schools among other things.
The
surcharge supposedly will help DWP meet the mayor’s artificial goal of
eliminating the utility’s heavy dependence on coal power plants by 2020.
To
give you an idea of how high this surcharge will go, consider this:
$2.50 generate $30 million a year in revenue compared to the $700
million the ECAF will generate by driving up electricity charges from
the 11.8 cents per kilowatt hour charged last year to 15.8 cents they
are seeking.
With one in five DWP customers getting heavily
subsidized rates, the burden is put entirely on the middle class, the
same people who are watching the few services they use like parks and
libraries decimated, the same people who have been getting hit for years
with all the increases in fees, rate and taxes.
If you won’t go
to the wall in fighting against this ripoff, you will get what you
deserve.
On Saturday, the DWP advocacy committee led by Jack
Humphreville will take up the issue at 12:30 p.m. after the LA
Neighborhood Council Coalition meeting in Glassell Park.
What do
you think should be done? What are you prepared to do? Let me know your
thoughts at ron@ronkayela.com..
Recall Greuel if she does not do her job and audit DWP.
Recall Greuel if she does not do her job and audit DWP.
Guess what, raise DWP rates, use goes down – DWP probably cannot sustain their hefty raises – DWP customers are conserving and being penalized for it.
No more paycuts of city employees as a solution to the budget. Layoffs are required. Please be reminded that city employees were hired with the knowledge that civil service rules meant last in, first out. Less than 15% of full time city workers live in the city of Los Angeles. four to five thousand employees were hired in the past 5 years, has service improved, will service decrease that much after a layoff?
Give the taxpayers of the city a break, let those city employees with less than 5 years of service go first, start relief of the pension system with reform. Hire back if needed, from the reserve lists after pension reform is accomplished – its the pension system that is hurting the budget.
It is so hard to watch the morons who have ruined our city have the audacity to ask questions of all the city depts. as if they are not responsible for this mess. They speak to people like they come from the ghetto with no education. Ron the answer is to do a public information document and see where all the DWP millions has gone. I bet there is campaign donations in that list.
OMG!!! City Clowncil are talking about putting yet another lie on the ballot called a parcel tax for the fire dept. ARE THEY CRAZY???? Hahn can’t be serious as she must know we don’t trust them anymore. They’ve lied and deceived the public more then once. I say the neighborhood councils should start saying HELL NO today and pass it on to all their networks.
What it looks like they are doing in city council is going through discussions that they shape in order to prepare the public for another round of financial muggings of the public to compensate for their combined ineptitude and lack of focus on managing the city over the years.
They spend money just fine and reward their friends but they are completely lost when the economic picture darkens. They can’t layoff without the parade of employees chastising them before any ax falls, something very unique to government. Private sector actions are something like, (a.) make a decision, (b.) act on the decision, (c.) continue business as modified.
Now they are trying to isolate every service formerly included in the package of services historically provided by the city and make a separate charge for each one on top of existing taxes. They say we got a “free ride” before- I think they were the ones getting a “free ride”- being allowed to stay in office while participating in the waste, fraud and abuse themselves.
All this showtime in council meetings is for the purpose of laying a foundation for supporting the actions that they want to propose, and they are planning for separate charges more and more, not trying to be more cost efficient or anything else that’s useful- they don’t know how to do that.
(And does anyone notice Janice Hahn cannot stop talking? Is she into “Lt. Gov.” campaign mode trying to get more face time? If so, she should be told that she is coming across more poorly the more she talks.)
Janice Hahn has become the biggest embarrassement to her family and father’s legacy with her grandstanding condensending attitude towards everyone. I don’t know anyone who is supporting her for higher office. She is a typical blonde bimbo with no brains. She stands with her arms folded as if she’s queen shit. Hahn needs to look in the mirror and take accountability as the other morons for the mess they’ve made. We should be able to sit them at a table and grill them meanly they way they are doing the city depts. SHAME ON HAHN!!!@
The Mayor and the City Council have a great advantage which will perennially ensure their advantage over the people. The city is too big, electorate too apathetic, educated and concerned too few, and a major newspaper with no identity other than to tow the government line. Sites like Ron Kaye are unique but can’t reach the entire city. It is a challenge for the rest of us to get the message through.
Watch you nose Ron…don’t go snooping around any reservoirs at night!
(CRYPTIC SATIRE ALERT)
Can’t help thinking of John Houston in Chinatown whenever we see Freeman’s hat. We Noah (double) Cross when we see one.
But pinging IMDb to freshen up on the plot, first thing that popped up on memorable quotes was a politically incorrect joke which does’nt make the TV version…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071315/quotes
So it make one wonder…just what do these goons go off and read in between screwing ratepayers with Measure B, then ECAF, then surcharges, and whatever else they manage to think up.
While you’re contemplating this mess — like you have nothing else to be aggrivate about — go to ourla.org and read “The King and his $9 Million Court — Villaraigosa’s 173 staffer.”
I don’t have a clue what to do about the DWP. If we march on them they won’t listen. If we march on the Council they won’t care. If we refuse to pay our bill, they’ll shut of the water and power. They’re unboycottable!
Cynically and sarcastically, I say if we can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. We all get jobs at the DWP, then we’ll be able to afford the rate hikes.