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made last Tuesday and hardly anybody noticed, which was City Hall's goal.

Poor David Freeman, here he is rich enough to enjoy a luxurious retirement at the ripe old age of 83, and renowned enough to bask in the glow of his achievements.

Yet he's taken on the dirtiest job in town as general manager of  the Department of Water and Power at a time when the nation's largest municipal utility is under siege from all directions.

And he's off to a terrible start that calls into question his ability to do the job even on the six-month interim basis he says he is committed to serve.

He stood up the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council for a scheduled appearance one night, perhaps because he couldn't catch a ride since he doesn't drive. Then, he got stood down by the City Council over proposed water rate increases and pressure for an independent Ratepayer Advocate's Office.

It is only going to get worse.

An aging pipe burst and water gushed down Coldwater Canyon, causing disruption for a week as city officials demanded answers from Department of Water and Power officials to assuage angry residents.

"We have an aging infrastructure--the pipes underground are not getting any younger," explained the DWP official in charge of the water system. " What we are doing is crossing our fingers and hoping that this kind of thing doesn't happen again."

Crossed fingers hasn't worked too well since that incident 16 years ago in September 1993. Another burst water main closed Coldwater Canyon again September and couple of other broken pipes elsewhere caused more disruption.

LA's water and power infrastructure has gotten a lot older and more vulnerable to breaking down despite a series of rate increases that were supposed to fix the problems.

Breakdowns, massive pay raises and inflated salaries, management arrogance and lack of transparency, rejection of the Measure B solar energy plan by voters, illegal transfers of millions to the city general fund, resistance to creating a Ratepayer Advocate, City Council rejection of lifting the cap on energy surcharges -- they are among the many factors that have shaken public confidence in the DWP and its leadership, and brought its credibility to an all-time low.

Yet, that isn't stopping the mayor's Energy Czar David Freeman and DWP officials from trying to orchestrate another solar energy plan that seems a lot like the one voters rejected in March.

The campaign started in earnest last Wednesday when Freeman, City Council aides and DWP got together with some 15 or 20 environmentalists and launched their hard-sell.

The next day, most of that group got together at City Hall with representatives of business and private sector labor, and DWP Committee President Soledad Garcia, DWP critic Jack Humphreville and me -- key leaders of the extraordinary grassroots campaign that against all odds defeated Measure B.

Jeff Catalano of Councilwoman Jan Perry's office opened the meeting by making it clear that the past sins of the DWP were off the table and so was the issue of unlimited rate increases from Energy Cost Adjustment Factor (ECAF) that the Council just unanimously rejected out of fear of a voter backlash that could prove dangerous to their own cushy positions.

Nonetheless, Freeman conveyed the mayor's commitment to an open process (unlike the back room deal that Measure B represented and is now repudiated by everyone involved from the mayor, Council President Eric Garcetti, and IBEW boss Brian D'Arcy as if they hadn't engineered it).

Humphreville, who wrote the anti-Measure B ballot argument, presented his list of a couple of dozen concerns about this latest solar plan: Blank check for billions from ratepayers, DWP ownership and installation of most rooftop solar at its inflated cost structure to expand IBEW Local 18 jobs, emphasis on low-efficiency renewables, refusal to contract for best prices.

They all sound a lot like the same concerns over Measure B.

There is one big difference: Freeman insists City Hall won't make the same mistake again of putting this solar plan on the ballot and letting voters have a say about how their money is spent.

Instead, the DWP will hold a two-week series of six community meetings starting Wednesday. Workshops, they are called, where the public will be told what the DWP's intentions are and then the City Council will be asked to give the green light, no serious questions asked.

The plan itself is something of a secret, according to DWP public relations chief Joe Ramallo, who arrived late at Thursday's meeting and told the assembled environmentalists and activists that the actual plan is still a secret, a work in progress and will be refined after all citizen input is tabulated and collated.

But things didn't go the way they were supposed. Soledad, Jack and I offered oft-discussed concerns, questions and criticisms.

But so did the environmentalists.

They were burned by Measure B thanks to their leaders preferring to be in bed with the mayor and his pals than actually achieving clean energy.

They clearly do not intend to be burned again when everybody wants clean energy but also want it at a price that people can afford in these hard times and want policies that serve the public interest rather than enriching the special interests that have prospered so long on City Hall's corruption.

From the remarks of the various interests at the table, it was clear everyone wants a full private sector involvement and a minimum DWP role, a clear timeline and cost and rate impact analysis, assurances that DWP management is up to the task and the use of the most efficient technologies -- those that produce the most energy at the lowest price.

Freeman, that good old smooth-talking Southerner, said at the outset he wanted a 99 percent consensus on how to go forward. He got what he wanted -- sort of.

There was a clear consensus but it's not the one the DWP or City Hall sought. We're on the road to coming together as a city where we can find agreement on how to get the most clean energy at a pace and at a cost the public can afford.

That would be the victory we're seeking when we fought Measure B.  It would be a sign of hope, hope that City Hall has lost its clout, that we are waking up across class and political lines and taking back our city.

Personally, that would be a dream come true.

Sometimes, the threads of the news come together so elegantly you'd think there was an invisible hand at work making sense of it all. At least that's my experience from time to time over the years.

Take the fact that last Wednesday, the City Council rejected the DWP's demand for a blank check to buy renewable energy on the open market no matter what it costs ratepayers struggling to keep their jobs if they have one, to pay their rent or mortgages and make ends meet in the midst of the worst recession in their lifetimes..

Then, on Friday, I accepted an invitation to go to City Hall this week to hear the DWP present its revised plan for solar energy that seems to be a lot like the Measure B plan the public voted down in March.

On Saturday, I dropped by the LA Neighborhood Council Coalition meeting when Councilman Bernard Parks decided to step out in public and tell us the end of the world was coming -- or at least the end of LA as we know it -- unless we take drastic steps like massive layoffs of city workers to avoid bankruptcy.

The unions, particularly the IBEW which virtually runs the DWP, have taken the city hostage and have a stranglehold on our elected officials who owe their jobs to them, he said. The result is pensions costs and spending are out of control because the unions get whatever they want from the politicians whenever they want it.

Then, Saturday night a 95-year-old water main burst on Coldwater Canyon in Studio City, flooding dozens of homes and businesses with up to three feet of water and causing massive traffic snarls that will last all week.

The mayor got there at 4 p.m. Sunday to take charge and Twitter us with the news our DWP workers were there on overtime to restore order:

There's a fundamental difference between a publicly-owned utility like Southern California Edison and a municipally-owned utility like the LA Department of Water and Power.

You can guess which utility is more open about what's doing, more accountable to the public and, in the case of SCE and DWP, more aggressive about going green.

By law, SCE needs to be pretty transparent so that its shareholders and the public through its regulation by the Public Utilities Commission know what's going on. Its management can be held accountable by shareholders and its board of directors, if not always the public in general.

By practice, the DWP is not only secretive but does its very best to obscure what it's really up to and its management is far more likely to be called on the carpet by IBEW union boss Brian D'Arcy than any mayor or the City Council.

Perhaps that's why SCE is approaching 20 percent of its energy from renewables and DWP about half that percentage, why DWP depends on dirty coal for 40 percent of its electricity and SCE about half that.

Certainly, it's why a 75-word press release was issued Tuesday by Tempe, Ariz.-based First Solar announcing DWP had contracted to build a "large-scale solar power project in Imperial County...(that) will have a generation capacity of 55 megawatts."

And why a few hours later, SCE itself put out a press release announcing First Solar will build two large-scale solar power projects in Riverside and San Bernardino counties in Southern California...among the largest of their kind...(with) a generation capacity of 550 megawatts of photovoltaic solar electricity, enough to provide power to approximately 170,000 homes."

SCE notes it "is the nation's leading purchaser of renewable energy and, in 2008, delivered 12.6 billion kilowatt-hours of energy to its customers from renewable resources - about 16 percent of its total energy portfolio. In addition, the utility delivered more than 65 percent of the solar energy produced in the United States for its customers in 2008."

The best boast DWP can make is that it generates more pollution from coal-generating power plants than any other municipal utility in America.

Not to worry, General Manager David Nahai has a plan to catch up. But it's a secret so he can't tell you about it. The culture of the DWP and Nahai's own mindset require secrecy above all else so that only insiders who might benefit personally or politically are allowed access.

All you the public need to know is that it's going to cost you a ton of money.

The DWP, for instance, doesn't mention anything about the First Solar deal on its website or much else of use to anyone who wants to understand what it's doing. The last press release posted came three weeks ago and declared -- prematurely, if not falsely -- that its new water shortage measures "successfully" reduced consumption.

The website Greentech Media  in an article by Ucilia Wang at least supplies some sense of the economic game DWP is playing in signing a power purchase agreement, quoting Mark Bachman, an equity analyst at Pacific Crest, as saying First Solar "is likely to sell the power plant to investors before project completion. But the city has an option to buy the power plant after it's put in service for seven years."

What we're really seeing is Measure B all over again. Except they not only don't want a public debate about what they're doing, they don't want another public vote because they know it would be rejected soundly.

But it's the same blank check for billions of dollars without planning or analysis.

And it has got the same No. 1 goal as Measure B: Protecting IBEW jobs and its industry-leading wage structure, which by the way is set to rise 3.25 percent higher on Oct. 1 thanks to the sweetheart contract the mayor and City Council awarded four years ago with provision for wage hikes as high as 6 percent.

In general terms, the DWP needs to reduce its huge load of carbon pollution and the easiest way to do that is to upgrade coal plants to natural gas, which has the key benefit of preserving IBEW jobs. But that isn't renewable energy, just less polluting.

So wind and solar come into play to meet the 20 percent renewable energy quota by next year no matter what they cost.

It doesn't matter what they cost as far as the DWP is concerned. They have won DWP Commission approval to remove the 4 percent cap on rate hikes for renewable energy, the Energy Cost Adjustment Factor or ECAF.

The ECAF allows for rate hikes to be passed through to ratepayers without going before the City Council or facing meaningful debate or cost analysis.

DWP expects rates to only increase 10 percent a year but they could go far higher since utility officials in their desperation to catch up with other utilities paying above market prices for renewable energy. And that doesn't even taken into consideration rate increases needed to cover the under-funde DWP pension which faces a $450 million annual shortfall -- a fact that officials have done their best to hide from the public.

The council has taken jurisdiction over lifting the cap on ECAF rate increases because it's already a hot-button issue for the citizen watchdogs on the DWP Committee that led the successful fight against Measure B, the kind of issue that is likely to explode in the faces of the politicians when people see their water and power bills soaring higher than their mortgages.

A lot of effort is being put into creating a Ratepayer Advocate office for the DWP but the real solution is to put someone in charge who actually knows how to run a utility, has the short- and long-term interests of the ratepayers as the primary mission and is backed up by city officials who have mustered the political will to bring the IBEW into line with the city's financial realities.

Anything less will lead to a public revolt against policies that cost too much and fail to achieve the clean environmental goals that are widely desired.

What's happening to LA is a crime but don't count on anybody go to jail. The game is fixed.

The street furniture deal is one of the scandals that goes back a few years when they let a greedy private company assault our eyes with commercial messages -- Consume!  Consume! Consume! -- at the ground level.

Since then we've seen how our city leaders have sold us out to giant flashing billboards and 15-story-high hangings that have only one purpose: Sell! Sell! Sell!

They thrive off of the pennies on the ground from the profiteers in hyper-consumerism and yet they dare call themselves environmentalists.

They are our leaders, sworn to serve us, yet they are the betrayers of all that is good for us.

They tried to get a blank check for billions of dollars in the name of solar energy and yet the people saw through their lies and refused to give them what they wanted in Measure B.

They don't care. They are going right ahead and prepared to spend as much as it costs -- $10 billion or more -- and stick us with the bill.

On that scandal-tainted street furniture downtown and perhaps all across the city, you can see the mayor's answer to LA Magazine's declaration a month ago  that Antonio Villaraigosa is a failure..

"Successful," it declares for all eyes to see, "Thanks, Mr Mayor For Fighting Against Dirty Energy. Coal gone by 2020. Successful."

For a man whose whole life is filled with a trail of tears over all his broken promises to be declared "successful" for promising to get rid of LA's putrid reliance on coal-powering power plants is laughable.

One can only ask who would have the shameless audacity to put up such a sign.

The answer is something called REAP. No, not the program the city uses to punish small landlords while bearing direct responsibility through its own Housing Authority for the worst slum conditions that demean and demoralize the neediest among us.

This is the Renewable Energy Accountability Project, chair and principal Jim Gonzalez who led the campaign last November for Prop. 7 the Solar and Clean Energy Act rejected by nearly two-thirds of Californians.

Its website lists none other than S. David Freeman as Principal Emeritus. Yes, the same David Freeman who once headed the DWP when it squandered millions of dollars promoting solar energy but failed to deliver any. Yes, the same David Freeman who is now Villaraigosa's deputy mayor for the environment, LA's Environmental Czar.

Quite a trick having your environmental czar able to get signs put up around town on a lot of that street furniture hailing your hollow clean energy promise -- a political slogan that has no cost estimates or plan associated with it -- and already declare you a success 11 years before anything has been done.

All we know is that the DWP, under the leadership of the mayor's dutiful servant David Nahai, is overpaying for as much as 30 percent to mask its long-term failure to go green and is prepared to spend whatever you'll pay to try to catch up with all the cities in California that are so far ahead in the clean energy transition.

This is about Money! Money! Money!

It's about who gets it and who will pay the clique of politicians, consultants, contractors, lobbyists, unions and hangers-on who will profit.

The campaign is under way and, at this point, we can only wonder who supplied the money to REAP to pay for these street furniture signs declaring the mayor so successful in delivering on his clean energy promise.

Or did they even have to pay at all.

Time's up for the DWP to lay out in detail with cost estimates, timetables and implementation strategy its proposal to make LA the greenest city in the nation.

Or at least the deadline would have arrived if voters had not risen up and defeated Measure B on March 3 -- a defeat inflicted because it was a back room deal that amounted to a blank check for billions of dollars for the very people who had failed over and over to deliver on their promises to deliver solar energy to LA.

The only meaningful provision in Measure B was the requirement that the DWP come back in 90 days with a real plan to finally deliver on its promises to bring solar energy to LA.

The 90 days are up and there is no plan -- at least no plan that has been brought forward for public debate, discussion and analysis.

But that hasn't stopped the DWP from getting the blank check for billions it wants or moving ahead without public scrutiny on a green energy scheme that, based on past performance, will enrich its union, the IBEW, and the usual coterie of profiteers and power brokers without producing the clean power it promises.

Promises are cheap to the LA political machine. After the defeat of Measure B, there were promises to meet with community, business and labor to develop a solar energy plan that would win public support. No such discussions have taken place.

In the meantime, the DWP has moved forward to get approval for its Green Path North transmission line through fragile and unspoiled desert terrain near Joshua Tree although the I-10 corridor already provides a cheaper and faster way to move renewable energy to the city.

The mayor helps this along by filling a vacancy on the DWP Commission with former Sempra Energy executive Tom Sayles who and was recently appointed USC's vice president of government and community relations.

The public is demanding a ratepayer advocate to protect their interests and provide transparency and open discussion but what we get is a corporate lobbyist for energy companies.

His appointment does not suggest someone who will stand in the way of the DWP from getting a 4,000 percent increase in the "pass-through" rate hikes as it goes about buying renewable energy no matter what it costs while enriching contractors and consultants.

Just as with Measure B, environmental groups with their own economic and ideological interests are all aboard the DWP's underground solar energy plans.

The problem with their holier-than-thou, old school political power play is that it leaves the public out and ultimately fails to achieve the stated goal of a cleaner environment.

Just because a Prius emits less pollution than the '55 Chevy I dream of owning doesn't mean it isn't destroying the planet too. If you want less pollution, you need fewer and cleaner cars which means building a real public transportation system and making the streets safe for cyclists and pedestrians.

Just because solar installations are less polluting than coal-burning plants doesn't mean you are cleaning the air when the dirty power plants are still operating and you are adding to electricity demand with over-development.

We need to use less water and power -- not more cars even if they don't pollute as much as old ones or more people even if you install rooftop solar panels.

Routinely approving more massive developments as the City Council did this week for Century City and the La Brea-Willoughby areas doesn't reduce our consumption of water and power or ease traffic congestion.

The contradictions of boasting you're making LA a green city when you're actually making the environmental problems worse exposes the truth about what's going on.

This isn't a green machine but the same old greed machine.

Ever since Measure B on solar energy got ramrodded onto the ballot last November, I've grappled with the question why the environmental movement prefers to cut deals with politicians rather than muster greater support from a public that embraces the green revolution.

A case in point is competing events on Saturday a few miles apart in the San Fernando Valley.

In Panorama City, hundreds of community activists will gather at the High School at 8015 Van Nuys Blvd. for a program than runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. It's put on by the Valley Regional Congress of Neighborhood Councils, an official city organization. The program is entitled "Building Networks and Plugging into Power" and features sessions called "Road to Empowerment" and "Empowerment Camps" with the goal of building skills that will expend the reach of NCs and their ability to influence public policy.

Just a short distance away in Sylmar at the Lakeview Terrace Library, 12002 Osborne St., three Valley legislators will hold their own competing meeting from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. with "environmental and renewable energy experts" and "environmental justice leaders" to build support for solar and wind power initiatives. The public is invited to the event sponsored by the usual list of environmental groups.

"Together, we can cut air pollution that causes health problems and global warming, and create good new green jobs in our communities," says the email announcement of the meeting.

The three legislators leading this exercise are State Sen. Alex Padilla (former City Council president), Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes (former councilman's chief of staff) and Assemblyman Paul Krikorian (who wants to represent Council District 2).

So I presume they know all about the Valley Congress of NCs and choose to stage their own meeting rather than participate in the city's official community empowerment event and gain support from 31 NC representatives and other community activists.

I honestly don't understand this.

Everywhere I go around LA I find overwhelming support for renewable energy, conservation of resources, smart planning, better transportation, cleaner air and water.

Frankly, the green revolution and community empowerment ought to be allies in the fight against political institutions that have failed us over and over again. This isn't an issue of ideology or partisan poltical advantage.

Or is it?

The meeting announcement sounds remarkable like the language used to try to foist Measure B on the ballot and many of the same players are involved

If you really wanted cleaner air and more renewable energy, wouldn't you reach out to the general community for input and support rather than mobilizing narrowly-focused organizations?

Wouldn't you work with the people struggling to bring real democracy to LA and full public participation to the political process?

I know I would.

"A proprietary department of the City of Los Angeles, the Port is self-supporting and does not receive taxpayer dollars." -- April 2, 2009 press release from the Port of LA announcing the DWP will give a "$3.5 million up-front cash incentive" -- 40 percent -- toward the cost of a 1 megawatt solar energy project.

Unbelievable!

Just days after voters rejected Measure B, the Mayor/DWP's plan for 400 megawatts of in-basin rooftop solar, the port and the DWP cut a deal for the public to heavily subsidize a 1 MW rooftop solar energy project at the World Cruise Center.

It's the first phase of a 10 MW, five-year project that, extrapolating the numbers, would cost $90 million with DWP ratepayers providing $35 million.

"We are harnessing our greatest resource to power our greatest economic engine," said Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, according to the press release.  "This project will create good, green-collar jobs and stimulate the growth of a new, green economy powered by clean technology.
 
"The solar power initiative at the nation's largest container port is part of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's Solar LA Program, the largest solar power project undertaken by any single city in the world.  The Solar LA Project will ultimately create a 1.3 gigawatt solar power network of residential, commercial and municipally-owned solar systems that will lower Los Angeles's dependence on greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuels."

That's the language of Measure B. David Freeman, ex-GM of the DWP and leading spokesman for Measure B, is the head of the Harbor Commission who presumably engineered this deal.
 
It's as if we never voted to reject Measure B.

"As a matter of fact we have an agreement with the IBEW that (under) the 20 percent by 2010 (renewable energy) standard, 40 percent will be owned or will be optioned to be owned (by the DWP) in recognition of the fact you could never ever attain this (100 percent ownership)/" -- DWP General Manager David Nahai, March 17, 2009.



Did anybody but a DWP Committee solar energy maven pick up on this extraordinary statement Nahai (nahai-deal.mp3) made that he's got a dirty little deal with the IBEW guaranteeing union boss Brian D'Arcy the jobs he wants no matter what it costs ratepayers, no matter whether it achieves environmental goals?

Nahai's statement came under pressure from Commission President Lee Alpert who wanted an intelligible explanation of what was really going on as opposed to the phony plan Nahai promoted as part of the Measure B discussion.

I ask again: Does the environmental movement want jobs for the IBEW or does it want clean energy for LA?

That's the heart of the questions the DWP Committee will be asking if the mayor and City Council ever deliver on their public promises, made after Measure B's defeat, to revisit solar energy policy in an open and inclusive public discussion. Or are they already at work on another back room deal?

Meanwhile, the public is moving ahead with or without the politicians.

The Bay Area solar buyers' cooperative I've written about gets coverage in the NY Times Sunday Magazine with a story about how One Block Off The Grid has launched its effort in LA and New Orleans and is going to other cities as well.

Kanyi Maqubela, the former Obama campaign organizer who is now 1BOG's field director talks about how the group is tapping into "latent activism" to bring potential buyers together, educating them about solar and negotiating group buys with up to 20 percent discounts.

The economics depend on feed-in tariffs that pay homeowners with solar units a significant premium for the electricity they generate, federal tax credits and subsidies to make solar pencil out financially.

Third-party owners of rooftop solar and the use of property tax bonding allowed under AB811 are also proving popular to eliminate upfront costs for homeowners but LA's Department of Water and Power, of course, doesn't allow those.

So much for its commitment to solar energy as opposed to feathering the nest of its union, the IBEW.

You can see a mashup map of all the people in the LA area who already have signed up with 1BOG.at their site.

Demand would be even greater if federal, state and local policies are aligned around feed-in tariffs.

Toward that end, Marc Strassman is doing an incredible job promoting solar energy and feed-in tariffs at his Etopia News site. Here's the interview he did with me last week:

Here's Wikipedia's explanation of what a feed-in tariff is:

A Feed-in Tariff (FiT, Feed-in Law, FiL, solar premium^[1], Renewable Tariff^[2] or renewable energy payments ^[3]) is an incentive structure to encourage the adoption of renewable energy through government legislation. The regional or national electricity utilities are obligated to buy renewable electricity (electricity generated from renewable sources, such as solar photovoltaics, wind power, biomass, hydropower and geothermal power) at above-market rates set by the government.^[4]

The higher price helps overcome the cost disadvantages of renewable energy sources. The rate may differ among various forms of power generation.