Power corrupts

Your fishwrap of record this morning adds a decidedly daring look to its column insert. Why, it's so inclusionary this morning, so multicultural, that it will even take a chance on featuring the voices of aging white male pattern baldness!

(Lynn looks over my shoulder and says, "Hey, all those poor people are just going through what you're going through!")

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That's Steve Lopez at the top of that illustrious who-needs-a-barbershop quintet. He is steaming over an abuse of power. Funny, some people would say that Steve Lopez is an abuse of power...

Today, case in point. Steve like most of us doesn't like it when his power goes off. But unlike most of us, he expects noteworthy civic figures in town to return his phone call when something goes wrong at chez Lopez, and implies that if you don't, he'll browbeat you in his column.

In most circles, they call that blackmail; but in Steve's, it's advocacy journalism.

Just listen to the tone of this:

Tuesday, which I like to think of as our third day of hell, brought no change. I went to work and called the DWP. Board President David Nahia, among others, told me they were doing the best they could in a killer heat wave, and that since he took the helm two years ago, the utility has been working on an infrastructure upgrade. He did note that 98% of all customers didn't lose power, but he was telling it to the wrong guy.

At the very least, I should be exempt from the rate increase request the DWP has pending, which would cost customers about $1 a month and, the agency says, help speed the improvements. But with the DWP, you always have to wonder if the problem is really money rather than management and performance.

About midday Tuesday, Council President Eric Garcetti returned my call. He said he'd found out what was happening in my neighborhood. The problem wasn't a transformer, but, ironically, a circuit system in the process of being upgraded. DWP had to build a temporary bypass during the improvements, he said, and the bypass couldn't handle increased demand during the heat wave, so it blew.

And what does that mean in terms of how long we'll be in the dark?

Garcetti, who has not lost his power, of course, didn't know. He didn't jump at my offer to trade houses, but invited us to drop by his place.

"He was telling it to the wrong guy"...."Garcetti, who has not lost his power, of course..."

Where are you going with that, Steve? You have the President of City Council return your personal call, and you're still going to suggest that he's on his own private grid?

We all know how special Steve is. Even so, I'd like all of you ordinary, aw-shucks citizens to try to call David Nahia or Eric Garcetti the next time your power goes off, just like Steve did.

The other thing is: you empathize with Steve to a degree, for what he went through. This was a really, really bad outage from the sound of it. The DWP should have treated Lopez---and all its customers with emergency-level problems---a lot better. And that should start at the service level, not at the nabob level.