http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dwp-rates26-2010mar26,0,787576.story This story was from late on Thursday. On Friday, the city council voted 13-1 to reject the DWP's request for the first of 4 rate hikes so that they could look at it more carefully. The rate hikes may come, and from what I see from people in the know, the first one may be a reasonable result, but the others need to be checked and dissassembled to see what is there breakdown on the components. Lumping in all the ECAF into one mix covers up what's going on and prevents any analysis to see what kind of job the DWP is doing.
This was another example of the city council beginning to step back from the mayor more and more. The Mayor's influence is weakening as the council appears to recognize the mayor as a political liability these days, as more people see the results that the city's top elected official let happen.
Council members chastised the mayor for saying in a 14-page briefing paper that a rejection of the rate hike would force the city into bankruptcy since the utility would no longer be able to afford to make the general fund contribution. On Thursday, Villaraigosa disavowed use of the word "bankruptcy" yet continued to warn that unless his plan is approved, the city would run out of money by June 30.The problem with the mayor is that he tells so many different stories to so many different people he losses track of it all. The report that carried the bankruptcy reference that caused so much commotion was distributed to media and if it was supposed to be a restricted access document, it wasn't handled as such. Besides, this just shows the mayor's speaking with, and I use that "Lone Ranger" dialogue, a "forked tongue" and not being forthright. The last time I remember he said something about erroneous refrences to documents was when his "11% Mayor" L.A. Weekly story used his own calendar for the basis of calculation of his activity. The Mayor said, "They used the wrong calendar." Tsk, tsk, you are not supposed to have what sounds like a "real" book and the "other real book." Matt Szabo tried to cover up with another, "He misspoke, there's only one book," attempt to save the day.
Villaraigosa criticized foes of the rate hike for using his briefing paper as part of the debate, saying the report was meant for city staffers only. "That was another example of the kind of [political] opportunism I've seen in the last few days," he said
The Mayor in one of his changes of personality, said he would never even USE the word, (bankruptcy). He sad that he would never allow that to happen." Well, if you run out of money to pay all the expenses that are due, it is going to happen. There is a lot going on in City Hall with the budget balancing attempts continuing while the DWP wants to slide in the requests for rate hikes that would keep raising your DWP bill.
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