DWP Decision Day
Today's the day the Council reconvenes on deciding to up DWP rates or not. Last week the Council effectively voted to put off the decision when they were seemingly not convinced this was the right move.
It appears that DWP General Manager David Nahai is going to use last week's tragic death of a Los Angeles firefighter in Westchester following an explosion caused by worn out electrical cables as a part of his dog and pony that rates need to be increased to replace the departments aging infrastructure.
A significant movement by Neighborhood Council leaders against the rate hikes lead to the Council's unwillingness to go along. Several news cycles and one tragic incident later City Hall watchers will be curious to see if the Council hangs tough.
It is not likely, but the Council could easily take a look at the significant waste, fraud, abuse and bloated salaries at the DWP that have been detailed here as well as in other blogs and local newspapers.
We will know soon. Anyone want to place bets?
It appears that DWP General Manager David Nahai is going to use last week's tragic death of a Los Angeles firefighter in Westchester following an explosion caused by worn out electrical cables as a part of his dog and pony that rates need to be increased to replace the departments aging infrastructure.
A significant movement by Neighborhood Council leaders against the rate hikes lead to the Council's unwillingness to go along. Several news cycles and one tragic incident later City Hall watchers will be curious to see if the Council hangs tough.
It is not likely, but the Council could easily take a look at the significant waste, fraud, abuse and bloated salaries at the DWP that have been detailed here as well as in other blogs and local newspapers.
We will know soon. Anyone want to place bets?
Labels: dwp, dwp rate hike, H. David Nahai, Los Angeles City Council
Posted by Mayor Sam @ 4/02/2008 08:40:00 AM
32 Comments:
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I think you are 100% correct that the Mayor and DWP will use the death of the fireman to guilt this thing through.
So why doesn't the guilt of the City not following its own laws and charter on this thing have any effect?
Is it just me, or am I some kind of stupid idealist?
(don't answer that...) :-)
NPR linked the death of the firefighter to an old lead-encased cable from the 30s this morning, so sure he will. Maybe it's valid. There have been underground explosions downtown, too.
But even Nahai admits they hve to look much more seriously at things like why dozens of sr. managers make well over 125K, more like double that to almost 300K, plus car. There's absolutely no reason that dozens of these overpaid people should have take-home cars, many new and luxurious, when even the Mayor and CM offices are being looked at. And field deputies are not well paid and have to drive all over town for their jobs.
Will the "real boss" at the DWP make an appearance?? (BOSS D'ARCY)
If Nahai tries to use the firefighter's death to get his way, he should be taken out to the steps of City Hall and flogged.
DWP seems to run the city instead of the other way around.
I think many councilmembers may be looking for an approach to get some money out of this deal in a way that they will not be taking heat directly. I still consider nearly all of them to be complete weasels in spirit and conduct. Their actions continue to support my conclusions.
The city taxpayers (= "rate payers") are constantly treated as cash cows. Stop milking us with all the "FEES" for a change.
An opinion In CD-14.
DWP should use the rate payers payments for the infrastructure rather than forward hundreds of thousand of dollars to the City of Los Angeles General Fund which is used by the Mayor for whatever he wants'; for Hillary; for travel around the world, for payoffs, etc.
With all of that crap on this blog, don't you think it's relatively important to ALSO include important news such as the major layoffs at KCBS and KCAL?
Anne Martin and Harold Greene, Jennifer Sabih, and other reporters WHO COVER CITY HALL have been pink slipped.
Oh, maybe you'll just do another post about Jack Hoff's farts.
What the hell has happened to this blog???
"It appears that DWP General Manager David Nahai is going to use last week's tragic death of a Los Angeles firefighter as a part of his dog and pony that rates need to be increased to replace the departments aging infrastructure."
Mayor Sam, where did you get this info, just curious? Is it your own source, or did you pick this up from another blog or newspaper?
9:52, No Kevin...not as big of a deal as you think it is compared to actual items that pass through the council agenda. (Not that I am also not wondering what happened to this blog.) Maybe you can work a little harder to pick up the slack at LA Observed.
I think its fucking obvious to anyone who has a brain. Antonio told David to do whatever he has to get the dough. They will use the firefighter's death.
Mayor Sam, ZD got lucky and kinda walked into this little tip:
From LA Daily Blog (4/2/02/6:57 am)
"AND: Desperate times (for Nahai) require desperate measures, so don't be surprised if you hear him blame the recent tragic death of an L.A. fire fighter on aging infrastructure -- even though the Mayor of Los Angeles already declared publicly it was a "freak accident."
Did someone contact you with this info, too?
Zuma, I heard KNX say it early this morning.
KNX reported that Nahai was going to blame the fire tragedy on failing infrastructure in his speech today?
Rosendahl didn't waste any time -- as the first City Council speaker, he is carrying on about the physical state of DWP cable right now.... and now he is talking about the firefighter.
Um, it was in the Daily News. I have to agree with the guy that anyone with a brain could see it coming.
Not exactly, Zuma (11:06) but it wasn't hard to make the connection. (paraphrasing) -- They said that today the City Council was voting on the DWP rate increases, while funeral services for the firefighter killed by deteriorated DWP infrastructure would be taking place.
They added a middle 8, if you will, but I heard exactly what they implied. And I sighed. What terrible misfortune for the firefighter's family; and how amazingly timely for DWP.
How interesting these recent timely tragic events have been for both Villar and DWP. Is the universe just doing this to us? WHY?
(slooooly ripping hair out)
Not everything on this blog or others are a "scoop." In fact, to be honest, very rarely are there real scoops. We get big ones once in a while like Mirthala or Janice Hahn's parking troubles. Even my article about the Harley Davidsons wasn't so much a scoop (anyone could get the LAPD report) as it was that no one else bothered to cover it.
One could of see this coming when Nahai was on scene just as fast as the helicopter that took the injured firefighters to the hospital.
Yup -- even LaBonge is going for the infrastructure angle now. One councilmember after another is going on about infrastructure and then handing off to Nahai.
That's it -- claim infrastructure and vote. Move on.
LaBonge just suggested that the Neighborhood Councils pay the increase in their stakeholders' bills if they do not like it.
He also just said "I don't like it when the lights go out", yet he has no problem spending millions and wasting untold watt-hours on his personal pet foofoo-thing the Griffith Park Light Festival.
It's shameless.
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THIS JUST IN: The DWP Rate hike increase discussion is under way inside Los Angeles City Council chambers.
ZD's super-surveillance listening device just heard: "The power increase should pass, but the water side...not so sure."
More to come
Petrafried is (slooooly ripping hair out)
Don't sweat it babie! It fell out years ago.
12:00 -- You told!
That was supposed to be our secret!
WOW! Zuma is reporting the news before it happens?
His secret spy device? Channel 35
What an idiot.
Hey Sam,
If Zuma's blog is as great as he says it is, why is he commenting over here? I don't see you commenting over there? Do you even read it?
Zuma is always commenting on Mayor Sam. I guess noon reades his blog.
12:42 pm,
Oh HELL YEAH...did I call that one. And YES, the information was passed on from inside council chambers.
I POSTED IT BEFORE THEY HAD THE VOTE, DUMB ASS...NOT TV 35. DID TV 35 BROADCAST IT BEFORE THEY VOTED?
Check the time stamp on the comment vs the time they took the vote you jealous douchebag.
If you knew how I found out in advance, you would be shocked.
But of course I will NEVER, NEVER reveal my sources to protect my sources. (And they know this.)
But it was sweet, and triumphant. Not that it's any big deal to scoop the info by an hour, or whatever...but it is pretty cool that ZD was anointed with the privileged info.
Maybe you can make a cartoon about it!
No need for a cartoon of Homeless Dave, he is one.
Maybe Higby should start deleting Zuma's news before it happens. After all Zuma will know it before it happens right?
Ann Martin covered City Hall? When?
Just curious...for a guy like me, who is just one person blogging, not a bunch of people like this blog or some others...what would be considered a decent amount of daily readers -- and what would be considered a really, really decent amount of daily readers. I have a hit counter on my blog. It's no secret how many people read it each day. It's a counter of "unique views" though...not page hits. (Big difference.) I had about 17,000 unique page views for the month of March. I don't know if that's laughable or respectable. I'm sure I could be doing all kinds of search engine things to help bring in more readers. But I doubt I'll get around to that. So the 17,000 is just based on people finding it. (Search engines and whatnot.)
And I know I can post stories that drive hits like Ashley Alexander (Spitzer call girl, or whatever...because as "LA Daily Blog" I could cover a wider range of issues that would bring in more sucker hits to boost the counter...but who cares. I don't have advertising on my blog, so it doesn't matter. But I would like to have the most amount of readers as possible, cause who DOESN'T want as many people to read about an important issue that people trust in you to blog about (spend time relaying the info to me)...so I am not knocking people who do all that search engine hit boosting stuff...I wish I knew how to do all that. But I don't post stories based on the amount of hits it will get either.
So back to the question...what is considered lame...decent...and really good.
Homeless Dave I don't think anynone reads your blog or cares what you have to say.
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