More on Mayor Villaraigosa's DWP rate increase

The Mayor sure has no trouble presenting more charges to city residents via their DWP bills. More on that announcement from Monday by the Mayor.

"DWP rates may rise between 8% and 28% to pay for mayor's green initiatives - The hike would pay for more aggressive conservation programs and a solar plan designed to create 16,000 jobs as well as cover the fluctuating price of coal and natural gas." By David Zahniser and Phil Willon, March 15, 2010 11:21 p.m. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dwp-rates16-2010mar16,0,7870063.story The Mayor is going all out on this, just like he did for the police department hirings and it cost us a triple-trash fee hike in September 2008, yet the money STILL did not go to enable the promised police hiring and MORE money was needed. All this was happening in the face of a recession, and Tony knew it, but it's "all about the Mayor" again, not about the city's well-being.

From the story:

The mayor also warned that more increases would be needed to reach his next goal: securing 40% of the DWP's power from renewable sources by 2020.

"We could have raised our fees even more to address the long-term goal of taking us to 40% renewables by 2020 and coal-free," he said. "We knew we had to do this incrementally."

So you can see that it is the Mayor who is pushing all this since the increases are needed "to reach his next goal..."

And the next sentence shows what? T hat maybe we should be thankful to the Mayor? "We could have raised our fees even more..."
Well, thanks a lot, Tony. You are just too kind.

There is still the City Council approval needed after this goes to a DWP Board meeting coming on Thursday,

The DWP board, whose members are appointed by the mayor, must approve the plan for the increases to go into effect; the proposal goes before the board Thursday. The City Council will review the plan in upcoming weeks and can affirm it or send it back for more work.

You can't really count on them to do much for you since they haven't before, with their loyalty swinging over to the Mayor's side. The Council members need to hear from you and they are being more attentive to the constituents as their actions are being more closely watched in these budget adjusting days, especially for those running for reelection in March 2011 (the even-numbered council districts).

One union leader said residents would support the increases once they knew how the money would be spent.

"When they see that there is a clear-cut plan to do what we need to do in this city -- which is to be more green, to create jobs -- then I think that most people . . . are willing to go along with that," said Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the L.A. County Federation of Labor.

Well, the "create jobs" is the main part of that sentence from Durazo, a heavyweight in terms of union influence. And it's not just "jobs" they mean, it's "union jobs," which will give them even more clout in calling the shots- as if they already don't have a lot of clout. Politicians are the ones that fit in this old saying that fits here with a little adjustment: "When the union says 'jump,' the politicians answer, 'How high?'" This is the way it is with special interests with money and votes.

If you are against making these increases in the DWP bills, let your council member know- let them all know. They use the DWP at your expense. The DWP continues to make profits to ship over to the City's General Fund help cover their expenses INSTEAD OF KEEPING IT WITH DWP. So we are supposes to pay MORE as they continue to have profits and keep employees with sweet salaries and benefits at the same time?

That's city government- and they expect us to have faith in what they do. Many did and look where we are. Faith in their decisions is misplaced and not needed. They need to do the right thing and it's not gouging the rate payers (us).