Zine Questions Cause of Blackout
It wasn't going to be long before someone tried to connect the dots between Monday's power outage and the recent DWP contract dispute.The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers wants a 16.25% increase that could balloon to 30% with inflation. The union has threatened a strike if they don't get this contract.
Council Member Dennis Zine, chair of the Personnel Committee, has been leaning against the raise because of his concern over the fiscal impact.
Now Zine - himself once head of a municipal employee union - The Police Protective League - is questioning whether Monday's blackout is related to the pay issue. He isn't pointing fingers, but he said to the Associated Press, "There's no question that water and power is in contract negotiations," Zine said at the City Council meeting. "Could this be interpreted as ... 'if we don't get this we're going to shut down the power of Los Angeles?'"
This could get interesting.
Posted by Mayor Sam @ 9/15/2005 07:00:00 AM
17 Comments:
Dennis Zine got no business questioning anything. Let this be a lesson to him and the rest of the Council. The City is controlled by the workers and not by these percieved policy makers. Without the unions, these councilmembers wouldn't even have their seat. Let this be a warning about how things work in the City.
This just in to City Hall:
LOS ANGELES, CA, September 12, 2005 - Horror and disbelief swept through the greater Hollywood area this afternoon as a minor power-outage turned the city into a virtual war zone, and local residents struggled to deal with the devastating aftermath.
The outage struck at 1:35 PM, during L.A.'s busy afternoon coffee and Pilates rush hour. Traffic lights fell dark, local gyms and sushi restaurants were without power for nearly 30 minutes and many businesses were illuminated only by the light of the sun and its blistering 78 degree heat. "It was horrible," said out of work actor and voice-over artist Rick Shea. "I was in a Jamba Juice on Melrose when it, hit and the blenders simply shut down. A woman lunged for my Berry Lime Sublime and after that, well, it got pretty ugly."
In the ensuing panic, local radio stations broadcasted conflicting reports as to exactly which local businesses would be offering relief supplies. Almost 100 people flocked to the Starbucks at Santa Monica and La Brea only to find helpless baristas, no hot coffee and a totally meager selection of baked goods. "My mother is 83 years old, and we heard on the radio that this Starbucks was going to be up and running. If she doesn't get a venti Arabian Mocha Sanani, I don't know what's going to happen to her; I really don't." said Lucinda Merino of Los
Feliz. To make matters worse, those few people who did manage to get coffee were further thwarted by a total lack of artificial sweeteners on site. "Sugar in the Raw? Are you friggin' kidding me?" sobbed local
homosexual and avid salsa dancer, Enrique Santoro. "I'm on the South Beach Diet, and my insulin levels are going to go crazy if I use this. Why isn't the rest of the country doing something?"
Deteriorating conditions will force authorities to evacuate the thousands of people at local Quiznos, movie theaters and upscale shopping centers, including The Beverly Center, where a policeman told CNN that unrest was escalating. The officer expressed concern that the situation could worsen overnight after patrons defaced multiple "So You Think you Can Dance" posters, looted a Baby Gap and demanded free makeovers en masse at a MAC cosmetics store during the afternoon.
At least 2,000 refugees, a majority of them beautiful, will travel in a bus convoy to Beverly Hills starting this evening and will be sheltered at the 8-year-old Spago on North Canon where soft omelettes with confit bacon and Hudson Valley foie gras was being airlifted in by The National Guard. Thank heavens.
Honorary Mayor of Hollywood, Johnny Grant, told a group of embedded reporters at a Koo Koo Roo Chicken restaurant on Larchmont that, "The scope and scale of this disaster is almost too much to comprehend. Local carwashes are at a stand-still, the tram tour at Universal Studios has been on hold for almost an hour now, and I've been waiting for a rotisserie leg and thigh with a side of green beans for upwards of 15 minutes. This truly is our Tsunami."
"We want to accommodate those people suffering in The Beverly Center as quickly as possible for the simple reason that they have been through a horrible ordeal," Grant said.
"We need water. We need edamame. We need low carb bread," said Martha Owens, 49, who was one of the thousands trapped in The Beverly Center when the escalators stopped moving. "They need to start sending somebody through here."
Along miles of coastline, the power simply surged, causing writers to lose upwards of a page of original screenplay material, causing DirecTV service to work only intermittently and forcing local residents to walk
outside and look helplessly at the breathtaking Pacific from their ocean view decks. "I can hardly begin to put this experience into words," said seasoned Two and a Half Men writer John Edlestein . "I was just getting into my rhythm and making some real headway on a scene where Charlie Sheen parties with a busload of female volleyball players, when my Power Book crapped out. I have nothing. Simply, nothing."
Delivering his weekly radio address live from the White House, President Bush announced he was deploying more than 7,000 additional active-duty troops to the region. He comforted victims and praised relief workers.
"But despite their best efforts, the magnitude of responding to a crisis over a disaster area this sunny and trendy has created tremendous problems," he said. "The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in the Hollywood Hills, and that is unacceptable."
"Southern Californians are resilient. I have no doubt they will bounce back like this never happened," professed Cellulite Reduction Specialist, Kim Bellevue. "The therapy sessions could reach an all time high though."
*******************************************************
I just love this City.
Why shouldn't Zine question the correlation between the recent power outage and the recent union negotiations? He is not saying that the outage was caused by them, but at least he has the balls to discuss the issue.
I am for unions and for people wanting to make a better life for themsleves. But a 16% pay hike within the next five years is insane. Where is all that many going to come from.? Let's see how this will fan out. I don't want to bitch too much because maybe things might fall into place.
Somebody in the City needs to questions how an incident like this happened as well why the taxpayers are giving these union workers such a large increase in salary. I am sure these well-qualified workers deserve good pay. I just thought they were already getting good pay and incremental increases each year.
It not right of our elected leaders to question these matters, it is their responsibility to the taxpayers and voters of the City of Los Angeles. So kudos to Councilman Dennis Zine. There needs to be a more thorough investigation of this incident and the LADWP, especially of GM Ron Deaton.
I hate the injustice of DWP workers earning much more than other City workers doing the same job. However, what is wrong with any worker getting pay increases that keep them even with the CPI? In fact getting the CPI does not really keep them even since the it does not take into account housing or energy costs. Are we asking workers accept what in reality are pay cuts when they get less than the CPI? Maybe the question is not why DWP gets so much but why society thinks it ok for worker, both public and private, to get so little? Also, anonymous 6:39, your satire was great; give us more.
One reason it makes sense for DWP workers to make more is that the DWP actually makes a profit, so they can afford it. City government does not.
However, I think that more of the DWP, Port, LAX, etc. profit should be going to cover public safety and other needs of the city.
When LAPD officers only get a 4% raise this is reason enough to oppose this pay hike. If city council gives in and approves they will be setting a precedent and sending a message that if the unions threaten they will win.
Mayor Sam: that would be nifty, if it weren't expressly prohibited by the charter. And there's good reason; we don't want political decisions influencing airport, port, and DWP operations even more than they already do. If the City had free reign to take as much money from the proprietaries as they wanted, you'd better believe that the GMs and workers of those departments would be under a mandate to slash costs and increase profits as much as possible--which naturally would come at the cost of service. Considering how critical those proprietary operations are, that's probably a bad idea.
And Dennis Zine is rather silly in tying these two together. It's an entirely unfounded allegation--as if this guy were ordered by his union superiors to cut the wire? He probably pissed his pants when he realized what had happened.
Honestly, they City should sell the prop. departments. Those are really more private industry functions. Then the city could take the money earned from the sale, put it into a trust fund and by statute the interest earned would go to public safety.
How much would all three be worth? A Billion or more I bet. At a conservative 3% interest that gives you the more than $25 million annually we need for more police officers, in perpetuity.
Of course, the politicians would no longer be able to shake down the vendors, that would be left to the private owners of the facilities to do, just like the rest of big business right? :)
There was a good op-ed in yesterdays daily News suggesting the DWP becomes 'corporatized' whi ch basically means that its privatized but still owned by the city. The DWP went from 7,000 employees 5-6 years ago to close to 9,000 today.Tthere is no way ANY Mayor ( Hahn or Tony) can stand up to the public employee unions. In addition, the union leadership cares about jobs but not about morale. Which is why govt workers are always unhappy. they know the system doesnt reward or punish good or bad behavior.
AV needs to make a bold move and tell the DWP to cut waste and stop adding all these unnneeded jobs or else he will 'privatize or corporatize the Dept.
ATTN: 6:39
That was fucking hilarious. If you wrote that-you're excellent. If not, give the author credit.
I want to send it to my friends.
Hi 12:04
Go here:
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Hollywood Power Outage Sends City Into Chaos
No electricity for 26 minutes. 'This is our Tsunami.'
By Joshua Gates
Actor, Photographer. Victim.
LOS ANGELES, CA, September 12, 2005 - Horror and disbelief swept through the greater Hollywood area this afternoon as a minor power-outage turned the city into a virtual war zone and local residents struggled to deal with the devastating aftermath.
http://www.hicookies.blogspot.com/
http://www.joshuagates.com/
ALCON
I can't claim credit other than working for this burg in a department that demands anonymity. It was sent to me and I just had to pass it on. I now know the author through the previous posts and the URL's - thanks.
God bless people with a sense of humor. You've got to have one working for the Silly of Los Angeles
Hey Mayor Sam, Joy Picus made the suggestion to sell the Port of Los Angeles to private firms years ago and was shot down. It seems that you cannot sell what you don’t own. The City receive the Port as a trustee through a grant from the State of California. As state land the City has no right to sell the land as it is prevented by the State Constitution. If it was tried today the state could just take the port back and run it from Sacremento.
Don’t think that the state has not considered taking over the port privately in the last few years thanks to Riordan trying to steal the port’s money (a.k.a. the Nexus lawsuit which the City had to settle at a cost of $65 million dollars) or the mismanagement of the Hahn’s. Jimmy was MIA allowing the commission to run amuck. During one CENR committee meeting Tony Cardenas had to remind Janice that the port was not her fiefdom for her to mircomanage.
The new commission will be a hoot as David Freman appeantly still likes to hear himself talk. Word is the Board of Harbor Commissioners meeting last Wednsday started at 6 p.m. and ended eight hours later at 2 a.m. on Thursday morning. Word is also that by the end of the meeting David could not keep his mind or words focused and started to trip over both. But then again he is 79 years old and most people had to be dragging after eight hours but just think of the overtime for all the staff. He needs to be careful, a few more meetings like that and he may work himself into a early grave. Now that he is retired and has time to devote to the Port, I’ve wonder how long until David is the de facto Executive Director the Harbor Department. Damn the City has not been as entertaining since he left DWP, welcome back it will be fun reading about you in the Times again.
Joy Picus also used to fall asleep during council meetings.
I just think you should know that I emailed the fake news story about the power outage to my friends and my brother emailed it to 97.1 and the talk show hosts, Frosty, Heidi and Frank read it out loud on the air on today's show.
I wish I knew who wrote it so they could have been given credit.
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