Business Has An Important Voice In LADWP Rates
August 24, 2010
by Webmaster
Business Has An Important Voice In LADWP Rates
Last week, L.A. City Councilmembers and local residents held a town hall meeting to talk about the Council’s plan to place an initiative establishing a Ratepayer Advocate on the March 2011 municipal ballot. Meanwhile, LADWP is convening its own community meetings on this issue. These dueling efforts will converge at some point, but for now they demonstrate just how concerned many Angelenos are about LADWP. The Chamber urges business people to engage in these important public meetings.
Unfortunately, the need for a Ratepayer Advocate means that the Mayor, City Council, LADWP Board of Commissioners and the General Manager and LADWP staff have not been transparent and accountable to the public in performing the duties prescribed to them under the City’s charter. However, simply creating the position of ratepayer advocate will not solve the underlying problems that have festered for years.
Appointing an effective team of Ratepayer Advocates is one part of the solution, but how the office is structured will determine its success. First, it must be housed where its independence and transparency is assured. Second, one person cannot do this job alone. A small department must have sufficient money to hire policy analysts and independent consultants as needed.
Ironically, the only certainty for a new Ratepayer Advocate and all of us as ratepayers is that there will be tremendous pressure for water and power rates to go up over time. For years, we’ve enjoyed low power rates because of our reliance on one of the cheapest sources of power available. Transitioning to cleaner energy such as wind and solar will cost more money. The same will hold true for developing more water sources and more water recycling systems. And ditto for the long-overdue upgrades to water mains and power infrastructure. The key is to keep these future costs as low as possible for the department and the ratepayer.
At the end of the day, a new Ratepayer Advocate is important to regaining public trust, but it is not a panacea for a utility whose history once inspired the film Chinatown and several months ago inspired hundreds of vocal opponents to a major rate increase. It begins by selecting a new General Manager (a function being carried out by First Deputy Mayor Austin Beutner) with the experience and acumen to steer the multibillion dollar agency. I encourage businesses, as the largest ratepayers in the community, to make your voices heard as we simultaneously hold down rates and plan for the future.
And that's The Business Perspective.
Comments
Read your above comments and was both disappointment and displeasure to see that you have stated that the DWP Commission of which I am honored to serve, as President, has not among others been 'transparent and accountable to the public' in performing those duties prescribed to us by the Charter, which you use as one basis for your arguments regarding the ratepayer advocate. To use this as 'a' basis for your argument regarding a ratepayer advocate is disingenuous.
As you should know from personal discussions, from the actions we have taken as a Commission(including resolutions supporting the ratepayer advocate, long before your above position was taken), your comments regarding the Department of Water and Power Commission, could not be further from the truth.
This Commission of diverse outstanding volunteer appointees and community leaders from the legal, business, educational, energy, real estate and environmental community, all of whom are Los Angeles residents and either are aided from or suffer from the same benefits or burdens of our actions, personally, have done our very best and acted throughout our tenure with independence and complete transparency, rarely seen previously. While approving resolutions that reflect the transparency we perceive should be afforded the public and disapproving those that do not, we have endured some criticism resulting from those actions to protect our Department and Ratepayers.
We have, as you are clearly aware, even made decisions which have been extremely unpopular in some circles and which have created acrimony with other City Elected Officials and agencies(including those who have appointed us), etc, for that very same reason of transparency and meeting our duties under the Charter, for which we now are unjustly criticized for doing.
BECAUSE of our believe in transparency, we have consistently attempted to honor just those responsibilities and obligations which we have all sworn to uphold upon taking office and in fulfilling our duties to the Department of Water and Power and our ratepayers, to whom such obligations are owned.
So, while a ratepayer advocate may be an appropriate position to have within the environs of the City, regardless of the reasons for or the location of such individual, group of individuals or own department operating separately, it is not appropriate to do so at the expense of the Commission which is not deserving of such a hit.
To assert that such office of ratepayer advocate is in part required because the Commission and Commissioners, who had been independently acting and doing everything within our policy powers to provide clean and safe water and power to our users and in doing so minimize the ever growing expenses, as basis for the need of such ratepayer advocate is at best misguided.
We look forward to continuing working with the Chamber and your members and all other constituencies, as we have in the past in a cooperative and business friendly manner, balancing the needs of all of the Departments constituencies and attempting to treat all issues raised in a fair, reasonable and honorable manner despite your above stated misgivings.
Cordially,
Lee Kanon Alpert
President
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
Board of Commissioners
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