DWP Wants To Scare You Into A New Rate Hike: Don't Buy It Until You Read About Their "Fraud, Waste and Abuse" Blueprint For Money Wasting

Don't Buy The Boo-hoo-hoo DWP Story Claiming They Need A Rate Hike: They could run the entire department on their waste and inefficiency alone
by Zuma Dogg

DWP is trying to scare you into a rate hike? The only thing scary is that the only concern of the powers that be, at DWP, is to hand out the contracts to their life-long buddies -- and how they get the kickback.

Here's Part One of this never-ending shady story of DWP concerning a lawsuit by eight former whistle-blower DWP employees. Click here.

BEFORE DWP ASKS FOR ANYMORE MONEY FOR LA RESIDENTS, HERE ARE A FEW THINGS MR. NAHAI SHOULD LOOK INTO. (Besides a Deming consultant.):

NOTE: But if you work for DWP, don't bring any of this stuff up, or you will be watched, followed, retaliated against, intimidated and fired.

a) Drive up cost of initial bid of the contract (that you hand to your friend) by adding an extra line item on the bid called, "miscellaneous" (for unspecified/undefined items). In one example, over 250 items came in under this "miscellaneous" line.

b) Overprice everything by 80%-100%. Mops, bleach, cleaners, towels, any item you can think of, charge DWP 80%-100% more. For example, when DWP workers ran out of a special industrial grade Kimberly-Clark paper towels that ("Gotham Supply") was charging $85 case for; an employee ran out to Grainger and bought a case for about $28.

c) After you mark everything up this much, send DWP old, outdated merchandise from some overstock warehouse. For example, Zuma Times has learned that DWP ordered cases of 8 oz bottles of Windex. And they got 8 oz bottles of Windex! Glass bottles. As in the old kind from the 70's. So old, at least, that the Windex was clear -- instead of blue -- and was packed in disintegrated boxes. (How much do you think "Gotham Supply" paid for the Windex?)

And remember, if you speak up, expect to be told to be quite, retaliated against and fired. [See Superior Court lawsuit for April 15, '08.]

d) Fire all veteran, experienced employees and replace them with new, inexperienced rookies to save money. Then don't train them -- just let them teach each other. Mistakes and bad habits are passed down the line.

The Times (Zuma Times) has learned that these new, untrained workers were/are doing everything wrong and most can't successfully complete a contract process. It's a very bureaucratic process, and if you need something for the job (like supplies), you have to order them six months in advance, which doesn't work, so everyone has to fudge the system. "The procurement system is broken", according to Nahai.

Splitting orders for example. Let's say you need 1000 gallons of bleach. But you are only allowed to order 500 gallons, per day. But you need 1000 gallons to get the job done. What do you do? Split the order! Twice the accounting and paperwork. Twice the bureaucracy.

e) If you are a big corporation, hire a company (like Onyx) that specializes in helping big corporations attain "minority ownership" status so that you can be handed more bids, with less heat.

These are just some of the ways DWP should start saving money first, before they try and scare you into a rate hike saying they need the money to prevent blackouts and whatever silly jibber-jabber they try and bamboozle you with.

f) Here's ONE way DWP may have saved some money: DON'T HAVE ANY SECURITY AT THE SWITCHING STATION. (The main controls where power grids are controlled.) You can also save money by not having any expensive security measures in place near the open area water supply. It's a lot cheaper to merely "say" you have security and just hope the Riddler doesn't show up to contamanate the water supply.

This kind of fraud, waste and abuse (misuse of funds by paying double for Windex from the '70s) may not be such an accident. It seems to many, as though it's all very carefully planned.

As I was researching this info, I realized it's the same stuff happening as with every other racket in town from LAUSD/Charter, non-profits, affordable housing, construction contracts, city and county services:

A few in charge hand out the contract to their cronies, then collect "campaign contributions" (shall we call them?) And the services can go to hell in a hand-basket...the only concern is that all of this shadiness and corruption is going end up coming out in public. But the newspapers have the politicians' backs, too.

And like one of ZD's early mentors told him: It looks like all of these things are happening independently, but when you follow the trail, they all orchestrated by the same symphony.

DWP claiming to need more money reminds me of a bank robbing ring asking the bank to place more money in the vault because they have been robbing it every night and they need more money to rob.

More to come at LAcityupdate.com.

BONUS: DWP'S David Nahai is a crybaby on top of it all. Here's his letter to LADWP/Oversight Committee Chair Soledad Garcia trying to talk her out of recommending City Council delay the DWP rate hike until the EIA survey is complete.

That will take six months, and slow down the flow of new money to grab, I mean use to prevent a loss of service. And in case the oversight committee doesn't decide to change their opinion on their own, Nahai lists a bunch of reasons why it doesn't count anyway. (Shady crybaby!) CLICK HERE FOR THE TEAR JERKER.

And here's Part One of this story.

zumadogg@gmail.com

NOTE: Alert to the 14,000 employees whose personal information walked out the door along with the laptop containing the database...watch for political mailers to magically start showing up in your mailbox. (Hope they are all properly labeled with proper disclosure.)