Results tagged “los angeles city council” from Ron Kaye L.A.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Daily News published an editorial Monday detailing dispassionately and intelligently the Department of Water problem. It's headlined: Rewiring DWP: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa must reform the city's utility.

The nation's highest paid City Council has done no harm the last few weeks, preferring instead to take one of its frequent vacations from doing the people's business so badly.

 

They are back on the job Tuesday but it's hard to know what they are up to and what havoc they intend to cause because the Council Agenda website isn't working.

 

Not so with the rubber-stamp DWP Commission, facing a long agenda after enjoying an August interlude that didn't cost ratepayers even a penny.

 

Tuesday, the commission will have the opportunity to sign off on a water rate increase under a formula that is outdated, obscure and offensive as the 4.7 percent permanent electricity rate DWP officials lied and connived to shove down the public's throat last spring in what is immortalized as the ECAF Fiasco.

 

This is the WCAF Fiasco in honor of the little-known, and rarely used, Water Cost Adjustment Factor.

 

The cost of the WCAF, effective Jan. 1, is just under 10 cents per billing unit which means they get only an extra $2.90 from me, having cut my water use in half. Others will be hit harder and an increase in the base rate of 8 percent will soon be up for approval.

 

The WCAF in 2007 and 2008 was zero, according to the DWP Commission agenda's supporting document and is six cents this year..

 

It is interesting formula used to determine the WCAF.

 

It was imposed in 1993 and uses only revenue generated by the base rate, not the revenue that comes in from a wide variety of surcharges, including procurement costs, quality improvement, security, revenue adjustment and Owens Valley regulatory adjustment - all of which can lead to additional charges to rate payers.

 

On the base revenue side, DWP officials acknowledge that water use since conservation measures were belatedly imposed led to a 9.8 percent reduction use, well below previous claims by those officials.

 

They claim a deficit of more than $21 million in base revenue based on the DWP's own projection targets for 2009-10. What isn't said is that the Tier 3 surcharges imposed as part of the conservation program actually covered the revenue lost from reduced use and added by even more than 10 percent to the revenue brought in.

 

So much for Austin Beutner's commitment to transparency and clarity that even ordinary citizens can understand what is going on.

 

Simpler to understand is the $232,206.47 being refunded to the Cheesecake Factory at the Century City Mall for service between April 2008 and February 2010.

It seems Cheesecake Factory was paying the entire bill for the whole mall and so was the mall during that 22-month period.

 

In typical obscuring language, DWP officials say that started an investigation of a "high bill complaint" on Feb. 10 of this year without mentioning when the double-billing complaint was filed.

 

It's possible Cheesecake Factory managers didn't know their bill was out of whack with reality for all that time or that the company's complaints, like those of so many residential customers, are ignored as long as possible.

 

Of greater significance to every rate payer, and to every person on the planet worried about global warming, is the reduction by up to two-thirds in DWP subsidies to those wishing to make their homes and businesses more energy efficient and to install solar energy panels.

 

The DWP is cutting its subsidies sharply.

 

The main justification is that the $2,000 cap on the federal tax credit for solar has been lifted so our municipally-owned utility intends to pocket the savings rather than using it to spur homes and businesses to go solar.

 

Why give the public an incentive to do the right thing when that money can be used to pay salaries and soaring pension costs?

 

You do get a bigger subsidy if you let the DWP own your renewable energy credits rather than selling them at a higher price to a private firm that pollutes the air, like the oil companies that are backing Proposition 23.

 

Making sense of the 10 different old formulas and 10 new formulas for the three different classes of customers - residential, commercial, government/nonprofit - with a variety of variable factors will prove difficult for anyone without a degree is computational sciences.

 

The bottom line is this: Subsidies to residential customers going solar get clobbered while those to business fall the least.

 

It would be nice to know about the $45 million being spent in a lost pursuit in the Owens Valley but the website link is corrupted.

 

So we'll have to settle on why the DWP wants it s pension fund to suspend its longstanding reciprocal arrangement with the LACERS, the civilian workers pension fund.

 

The reciprocity allowed workers to transfer to or from the DWP to other city departments with full credit for city service and their own contributions going with them but not the city's.

 

Now, the DWP is absorbing hundreds of city workers in makeshift jobs with raises up to 50 percent to utility officials want LACERS to make them whole in terms of pension funding.

 

It's almost funny, really.

 

Here we have the situation of one hand robbing Peter to pay Paul and the other robbing Paul to pay Peter when we all know who will get the bills in the end.

 

The lesson is there is no honor among thieves -- or maybe we can't wait another day to have a fully independent Rate Payer Advocate to protect us from the monster the DWP has become. 

.Editor's Note: Please observe how the two-minute warning clock doesn't run when Tim Leiweke is speaking but it does when John Walsh is mocking him and the the City Council.

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Unable to get on with the job of fixing the city they have broken, the LA City Council kowtowed Friday to AEG's Tim Leiweke's bullying, repudiated the elected City Attorney Carmen Trutanich for his efforts to clean up the billboard mess they created over seven years, and then repudiated him for being a bully.

What a day it was! Only regular viewers can fully appreciate the ironies and absurdities:

* Leiweke who's made billions off of the city subsidies of Staples Center and LA Live threatening to sue LA for hundreds of millions of dollars if he had to wait a week for a judge to rule on whether giving him six more giant billboards at the new Regal Cinema complex on top of the 16 already up would make the 2-month-old billboard ban illegal;

* The Central City Assn. and Chamber of Commerce lined up with ironworkers and IBEW electricians to demand the Council live up to their commitments to make AEG even richer because nobody else is creating jobs, union and living wage, and Leiweke gives generously to politicians and their favorite charities;

* One Council member after another, even best pal Dennis Zine, taking off the kid gloves and punching Trutanich's chief deputy Bill Carter, accusing Nuch of violating their bond of trust by fighting for what's right and legal;

* After spending most of three hours crucifying Trutanich before voting unanimously -- a foregone conclusion -- to reject Carter's entreaties to let the federal court decide whether giving AEG all those billboards would make the ban unconstitutional, the council needed 10 minutes to agree to stop hiring cops, temporaily unless it becomes permanent;

* And finally for something entirely different, the agreed to throw a crumb to the populace by letting a couple of Westside farmer's markets off the hook for newly imposed fees for two more weeks because the Chief Legislative Analyst couldn't get around to sorting out the details of how the onerous new system is supposed to work before the law takes effect Monday.

There's a lot of ways to look at this but the one of my choice is Trutanich is a dangerous man and must be stopped.

At least that's the view of the City Hall power structure which is not used to anybody having power not being owned by those who have power and money.

They accused him of threatening them with prosecution if they committed crimes, of failing to tell them the total ban on new billboards might queer their endless commitments to AEG, of engaging unprotected legal advice, of contradicting theadvice of his predecessor in the City Attorney's office who went along with anything they wanted.

It was a feeding frenzy and many of the Council members were foaming at the mouth.

But no one rose to the occasion more than Leiweke himself  who strode to the public comment lectern without being called like ordinary citizens as if he owned not just the Council Chamber but the whole of City Hall and laid down the law as if God, him or herself, was speaking through him

You made commitments, you will honor those commitments, you will cost me hundreds of millions of dollars and ruin my financing based on all the corporations paying fortunes to advertise on LA Live's digital billboard, you will pay dearly.

There was no doubt who was boss in this town.

Yet, Leiweke didn't merit a mention in the LA Times online story headlined "L.A. Council ignores Trutanich warning, backs signs for theater at L.A. Live."

Instead, the focuse was on Building and Safety interim general manager Raymond Chan saying he plans to issue the permits despite Trutanich's warning in great part because he believes the ban passed in August does not cover projects already approved and substantially underway, including the AEG's theater at L.A. Live.
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Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa also supports issuing the permits, said Jeff Carr, the mayor's chief of staff.

The Times said that once it receives the permits, AEG will put up four giant movie posters, including at least one for the Michael Jackson documentary "This Is It,'' which premieres Tuesday, which Carter repeatedly said already were legal as onsite signs, and signs for two of L.A. Live's sponsors, Coca-Cola and Toyota. Even the Coke ad would be legal since it's sold on premises.

Christine Pelisek at the LA Weekly's blog picked up on Councilwoman Jan Perry saying had  been threatened with criminal charges by Trutanich and arguing that AEG has had exclusive developments agreements with members of the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment District, including AEG, since 2001.

"I am not comfortable about being represented by a guy who might get me turfed over to the District Attorney's Office. I am doing my job."

She also quoted Trutanich's interview in the Daily News where he said:

"I'm just enforcing the laws. Right now there is a ban on digital off-site billboards. Where I grew up (San Pedro), when you said 'no more,' it means 'no more.' Up here in the central city, I guess it means something else."

With the failure of Measure B, it seems everyone in City Hall -- except the mayor himself -- agrees we need open and transparent processes and full community participation.

We'll soon see how that works when the public conversation begins over how to get the most clean energy at the best price in the shortest time and looming billion dollar budget deficits and the billboard fiasco.

Next Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. in the Council Chamber, the City Planning Commission will take up the latest attempt to quell the latest rebellion by the restless natives without actually doing anything that would deny the billboard companies their staggering profits selling sex and hyper-consumerism.

Dennis Hathaway, the expert on this issue, will post his expert analysis over the weekend at the Ban Billboard Blight website.

City planners released their proposal this week and it is very complicated with tradeoffs that  suggest great sensitivity to the interests of the billboard companies and their lobbyists.

For instance, the public's right to sue over plans for billboards until all administrative processes, including appeals, is taken away and fees for billboards, a pittance at $168, won't change.

Penalties for illegal billboards that are put up would rise dramatically but it's hard to put much trust in a system that has such a hard time collecting what it's owed that it is proposing to contract with bill collectors to collect fines from mammoth companies with their batteries of lawyers.

The chart below from Page 11 of the Planning Department report shows in green how the size of signs allowed under the proposed LA ordinance compares to New York, Chicago and Boston (the purple column). Boston is in the process of toughening its lax ordinance while LA would allow signs as much as five times larger than New York and Chicago.

It's going to take time to really understand the implications of this proposal especially since City Hall's track record on billboards like most issues is dismal.

Remember it was wannabe City Attorney Jack Weiss who wrote the flawed billboard ordinance seven years ago that his colleagues on the City Council approved without knowing what they were doing.

It was Weiss, the self-styled expert, who participated in selling out the public interest in the deal that allowed 900 digital billboards to go up after the city won the case in court. Once again, council members didn't know what they were approving, or so they said.

We can't afford to blow it again so I'd suggest calling for an extension of the moratorium while Neighborhood Councils review the proposal and have the chance to organize into an effective force to fight for changes that will actually work.
 

In its desperation to keep on living high in the Second Great Depression, L.A. City Council -- in its abominable ignorance -- doubled the charges on parking meters everywhere and expanded the hours you have to pump quarters into them or face much high fines.

And now people all over town are going around asking the same question: Can anybody spare a roll of quarters?

A policy enacted by the council as part of the budget for the sole purpose of covering up the fact they have bankrupted the city -- revenue is up a third under Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's tax-and-squander leadership -- is hurting businesses struggling to survive and made life almost impossible for the North Hollywood little theater community.

It's yet another example like the $42 million elephant exhibit and the nightmare of digital billboards where the council excuses its incompetence with the usual if-I-knew-then-what-I-know-now-I-wouldn't-have-done-anything-so-stupid.

Who they kidding?

They knew then that a lot of people hated keeping elephants in cages and they knew everybody but their benefactors in the billboard companies hated giant electronic screens flashing new messages for hyper-consumerism every few seconds, 24-7.

And they knew when they approved the budget exactly what the consequences were because the Department of Transportation told them so.

But they didn't care; they never care, until the public is in an uproar over the loss of business and the need to carry around a pocketful of quarters.

Ed Reyes does care. The councilman cares so much he actually had the audacity to criticize city budget and transportation officials and demand they go around and determine the impact of high parking charges on every business in the city -- a city that can't pay its bills so its slashing public services, a city that is overrun by gangs and doesn't have enough cops, a city turning "pay-to-play" political corruption into a way of life.

"I think we need to see if the increase in parking meters is having an impact on sales tax revenue," Reyes was quoted as saying in the Daily News. "Perhaps it is not the wisest move to raise rates in some parts of the city where we will be forcing people to go to other areas."

By "some parts of the city," class warrior Reyes means what he always means: The "rich" people who live in the other 14 council districts should subsidize every aspect of life in his neighborhoods.

Of course, nobody's rich right now except the truly rich and those on the city payroll (most of whom don't even live in L.A.) who are protected from the impact of the collapse in the economy because they keep people like Reyes in $180,000 a year jobs they could never otherwise get.

These are people who approved the nation's largest solar energy plan in just three weeks without even knowing the first thing about what they were doing, without considering the intended or unintended consequences.

They don't give a damn. All they know is that there will be billions and billions of dollars they can channel to their friends and contributors and when the electricity rates soar and too little solar power is generated, they will call the bureaucrats on the carpet and demand to know why they aren't doing their jobs

The issues were preservation of Griffith Park and the Southwest Museum and both sides sent advocates to the City Council on Wednesday to help make their cases.

It provided the chance to what a contrast there is between how the pros operate like Latham & Watkins lobbyist Bill Delvac and how community activists talk when pleading for City Council support.

Notice how Delvac references his ability to meet privately with Council members to make his case while activists need to show up en masse to get two minutes each during public comment time.

Delvac is paid handsomely and believes in what his clients want him to believe in and works for the top City Hall lobbying that is able to channel fortunes into political campaigns.

Activists spend their time and money to try to protect their values and interests. They're involved in issues that they truly believe in.

Here's a video that gives a peek into the way the system works. It's provided for purely educational purposes.

 

Anybody out there who's ever racked up more debt than they can handle or spent more than they have can feel the pain of L.A. City, County and State government officials that have lived beyond out means for years.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger needs to call the Legislature back into special session just weeks after he and they approved a phony state budget that's left what state Senate leader Dom Perata says is a hole of $3 to $5 billion and the state won't be able to pay salaries or other bills before the end of the month.

The county already is looking at cutting up to 7 percent in its spending which will impact the poor more than anyone else.

And what about the city of L.A.? You got to be kidding. The city is hoping that water rate hikes in January, raids on the DWP, the gang tax on the Nov. 4 ballot and cuts in street repairs and a long list of services to the public will allow it to survive at least until March.

By then the mayor and City Council members who have hidden their mismanagement with massive increases in rates, fees and taxes will be re-elected.

The crisis is looming well before then so it makes sense for candidates to step forward now -- with the filing deadline looming -- to challenge the mayor, controllers and especially the six council members seeking a third term because of their own complicity in deceiving the public about Prop. R two years ago as if it would clean up City Hall's corruption.

Anybody want to run? Pay is great, perks are fantastic. You can live like a millionaire. And you could even put the people first and the special interests last.