The DWP held back the transfer to the city of $73 million a few months back, saying it needed a rate hike and could not spare the money at that time without it.
The City Controller, Wendy Greuel, completed an audit and found that there was over $700 million in the DWP's own account, 10 times the amount that the City was waiting for.
"Controller finds DWP misled the public when it threatened to withhold funds from city- Wendy Greuel launched a probe into the agency's accounts after officials refused the mayor's request for $73.5 million. 'The DWP's actions unnecessarily plunged the city into a fiscal crisis,' she said." By David Zahniser, Los Angeles Times, June 11, 2010. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dwp-controller-20100611,0,7666607.story
Somebody in the DWP lied? All I can say is, 'What else is new?" Wendy is still a political person and very close to the mayor so she's not about to call these guys liars, even if that's the best word to use. The Mayor was the one pushing for the rate hike in April and he was completely on the DWP's side of the situation that was going to make bills higher for the residents and businesses in L.A. (Didn't he get elected to take care of the public's well being, and not to try making the road clear for DWP to make the most money it can make?) But you know what? He doesn't care as long as it moves all things to his goals of "looking good"- in this case, not the pretty boy stuff, but in the context of heading to a better record on converting to renewable energy and environmentally friendly things. It's all very expensive but not anything that will have him taper off for the public benefit. It's kind of like the way that Eric Garcetti presents, continuing to press on no matter how much expense it means for you and me.
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Check out Ron Kaye's blog and see his view of that situation,
"Condemned to Failure -- Beutner, DWP and the Refusal to Learn from the Past " By Ron Kaye on June 10, 2010 3:56 PM
http://ronkayela.com/ Austin Beutner is the Mayor's pick to run about 15 city departments. Usually you have one person with one department and that's the way that should make the most sense. Milliionaire or actually billionaire is working for a token amount and is the Mayor's hope for a solution to get him out of this financial jam that's been closing all around the city little by little over the past few years.
Ron Kaye sees some problems with Beutner's style and it's pretty apparent that there's a lot of posturing on this subject all around since no one wants to look bad here. The DWP workers caught by the Channel 2 reporter as they were drinking on the job and spending some down time in a strip club was just a little of a lot of ills that may not be widespread but should not be allowed to happen at all. DWP supervision either condones by its acquiescence regarding such activities or they didn't know at all what was happening until the Channel 2 reporter pointed out the problems by showing them. In that case, it points out some poor supervision practices followed, like, maybe, a failing by whoever is supposed to be supervising.
The DWP is more or less working on its own like a rogue agency, out of control from the City Council's view. Mayor Villaraigosa put Beutner into the job to be the extension of his authority. Villaraigosa was part of the problem when he was pushing for the rate hike that the DWP wanted, or it could have been a rate hike that the Mayor wanted to CYA on the budget, and keep the IBEW happy (as if they were not with the salary disparity and cushy terms that gave them raises to come in for 5 years).
The Mayor usually used to be on the union side of things and now had to be the bad guy on budget matters and you can be sure he did not want to be on the bad side of any union issues since he has relied on them for votes, a real big reason he caters to the union interests all around but look where it left the city. Such a fool.
But let's leave that for now as there's lots more going on- more antics of the Council and the Mayor to be examined, past and ongoing.
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