From LA City Beat
Power Games at DWP
(Zuma Dogg's headline is, "Nahai got DWP'd by City Council")EXCERPTS:
* David Nahai must be fuming about the spineless tightwads on the L.A. City Council this week. The new general manager of the Department of Water and Power encountered rough political waters when he tried to win support for rate increases he believes are needed to keep the air conditioners running this summer. We hope even bigger headaches await him before he finds some relief in higher rates.
* The council delayed its vote for a week, which sounds like a tiny problem, but it’s not. Nahai’s been talking up the water and electrical rates increase for nearly six months, first as the head of the DWP’s board of directors, then as a nominee last December for the top job, and now as the guy who will be held responsible when the lights go out this summer.
* We don’t want Nahai to get a free ride. Now that the City Council has his attention, it should make even more demands of him. If he is so committed to openness and allowing the public a full view of the utility’s operations, let’s see the council force open the books showing how more than a $1 million(*) given every year to DWP’s union-run training institutes is spent. It’s public money given to a public utility. The public should see the books.
* Let’s just see who the council fears most: the neighborhood groups or Brian D’Arcy’s International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18. [Batcomputer says Brian won't let Nahai open the books.]
[(*) Zuma Times Batcomputer says it is $3.5 million, not only $1 million.)
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