Here's a little information on the DWP's union, the IBEW where it seems they are more in control of that agency than the public, or more precisely, the public servants supposed to be watching out for us common folks, and that would be the CITY COUNCIL, with the Mayor giving cues to the many puppets at City Hall.
When you have a budget that is in the red as it's never been before, last Friday's meeting showed approval of the DWP raises that just don't make sense to me and many others when you have the LAPD going without raises and the LAFD has less than full staffing as the rolling brownouts reduce the ability to respond to emergencies as fully as they used to.
ERIP is going to hit the city pretty pretty hard in services. That's the "Early Retirement Incentive Program," that is planned for 2400 employees to retire early. There's about 400 over that number who have signed up to leave, but for now, 2400 will be leaving.
You can check some of the "progress" in city business by going over to columns posted by Ron Kaye L.A. www.ronkayela.com last week. The DWP commotion is explained well and there's a few video clips from the Friday Council Meeting to show that all is not well with a reduced staff.
That action was designed to cut jobs out so the payroll will drop and city expenses are lowered, right? Well, there's the double situation there to replace the old one: First, the pensions mean there will be payments for people NOT working anymore. It might be less overall, but the City is still responsible. A colleague of mine asked the Mayor at a public event just what was going on with the pension situation and Mayor Villaraigosa glibly replied, "I don't know, I'm not a pension expert." Well, that's pretty clear now, except there's supposed to be the "... but I'll find out" added to these response when you have somebody who is actually DOING their job.
The second part of the ERIP impact is that you will have the most senior employees leaving and that's usually cutting heavily into management. At Friday's council meeting, the people in the know reported all this to the CMs, many of whom were surprised. They mostly are surprised because they don't pay attention to news the first time it's brought up. Rosendahl was one of them. None of this is news but he started demanding reports and saying that no one should leave without somebody having their tasks covered, most of this directed to critical position holders. The staff reporting said, for example that one department's entire HR people will be leaving.
Usually, matters of common sense and logic don't always register with the CMs. You already know they don't with Villaraigosa who is on another out-of-country trip to Copenhagen and other European destinations that further add to the City deficit. There is nothing that requires him or Los Angeles to be represented at this conference so it's purely for image, usually his own, and as a functional matter, there's a limit to what can be done. Villaraigosa, with the support of Council President Eric Garcetti, continues to "pledge" to meet goals in "greening" Los Angeles, even though most of these actions will be costly to the "rate payers" or other participants.
Costs to the public for greening activity takes a back seat to the "image" and self-interest of the politicians, especially the Mayor. While he continues announcing all these so-called benefits, there is nothing to match that in HOW people, especially those on low or fixed incomes will be able to meet the predicted higher bills. Why is this the case? Simply because THEIR future and life style is more important to THEM and "THEY" call the shots as long as they keep getting re-elected. The Mayor, as a lame duck in his last term as Mayor, still does not appear to care about the city as much as he does to grab the next flight out of town on time.
Getting back to ERIP- the Council will meet on Tuesday and Wednesday and then be off until 2010. There's lots of business unfinished and the ERIP predicament is not clear- other than the people leaving will not be coming back due to "no funds" so the distess that CMs express should be no surprise IF they had been paying attention to the overall picture in the first place. They each have a budget for 20 staff members- and I heard that CM Huizar has more than this, but that's not confirmed. Surely they could have delegated some tasks to some of them for FINDING OUT the consequences of major changes that they put into action. What happened here? They won't tell, of course, but for certain, they won't take the blame and will be spreading around heavily any credit for reaching a solution, complete or half-baked, but any solution wil do for them to grandstand.
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And there's more, too. The Medical Marijuana Dispensary matter is still not finished as there is another delay while more changes and conflicts keep the CMs from fully agreeing on settling this after a few years that it sat on the back burner and the MMDs have risen from less than 200 when a moratorium on new ones was enacted in 2007, to an uncertain number now (as they are opening without city approval) that may be 800 or more in operation. A "hardship exemption" to the moratorium was written into the ordinance that opened the doors for the new operations to open, and that moratorium, though without any enforcement ever happening, was declared invalid as the City tried to extend it further. So there's no moratorium and no ordinance and clarity in this area is still missing. That is a topic for another day, as I see the CMs have postponed action until 2010.
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