[img]1851|right|Councilman Jose Huizar||no_popup[/img]L.A. WATCHDOG – Since the beginning of the year, the politically ambitious Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar and his Energy and Environment Committee have approved over $1 billion in programs and policies that are the pet projects of the campaign-funding unions and the political powerful environmental lobby.
Unfortunately, DWP Ratepayers and hard-working Angelenos once again are going to be stuck with the tab.
Just yesterday, the Energy and Environment Committee blessed the Dept. of Water and Power’s plan to eliminate coal as a source of power by 2025, two years earlier than planned.
However, little attention was paid to the $700 million cost of accelerating the termination of almost 1,600 megawatts of base load capacity derived from two out-of-state coal-fired facilities, the Navajo Generating Station in Arizona and the Intermountain Power Project in Utah.
Nor did this committee devote any real consideration to the alternative sources of power and the subsequent reliability of the power system that will be dependent on high levels of renewable power.
So Much for Phony Promises
On the same day, both the Energy and Environment Committee and the Ad Hoc Committee on Waste Reduction and Recycling approved the Exclusive Trash Franchise program despite the fact the hastily constructed implementation plan did not include the promised “carve outs” for the motion picture industry and hospitals. This plan would also permit one company to control 49 percent of the business, significantly more than the 25 percent to 33 percent previously discussed.
Furthermore, this plan deprives our cash- starved city of between $100 million and $150 million of franchise fees that would have been available over the next five years under the Non-Exclusive Trash Franchise plan favored by the City Administrative Officer, by the trash haulers, and by their customers.
The Exclusive Trash Franchise, which is favored by the same Teamsters Union that contributed handsomely to Mayor Villaraigosa’s 2008 ballot measures, eventually will add $150 million to the cost of the trash collection bill of commercial establishments and apartment owners. At the same time, service levels are expected to drop under this system that will be managed by the city, the same clowns who cannot even run a parking garage.
Did We Overlook Anyone?
Two weeks earlier, Mr. Huizar’s Energy and Environment Committee failed to address the $250 million IBEW Labor Premium that was discussed in detail in the August 2012 PA Consulting report on the two-year, 11 percent increase in our power rates.
Nor did this committee address issues involving very generous employee benefits, overly restrictive work rules, overstaffing, the efficiency of DWP’s operations, pet projects, the upcoming labor negotiations, or its underfunded pension plan and their impact on Ratepayers.
This is not surprising, given the political swat of campaign-funding IBEW Union Bo$$ d’Arcy and the resultant conflict of interest of most of the members of the Energy and Environment Committee and the City Council.
Nor did this committee investigate the legality $250 million transfer from Power System to the city’s coffers as a result of the passage of Prop. 26 (The Supermajority Vote to Pass New Taxes and Fees Act) in November 2010.
Earlier this year, the very same Energy and Environment Committee approved the DWP’s Feed in Tariff program despite the Ratepayers Advocate’s contention that DWP was overpaying by $234 million. Once again, the interests of the environmental community trumped the wallets of the Ratepayers.
This billion-dollar raid on the wallets of hard-working Angelenos and the city’s beleaguered business community does not include the anticipated doubling of water and power rates and the 77 percent increase in our sewer rates over the next 10 years.
The failure of the Energy and Environment Committee and the City Council to protect the wallets of its citizens from the demands of campaign-funding union bosses and the powerful environmental lobby will not go unnoticed.
If the city expects voters to approve new taxes, such as those being considered by Councilmembers Joe Buscaino and Mitch Englander to repair our failed streets, it will need to not only need to reform its budget, pension, and work place policies, but protect our wallets from politically ambitious politicians who want to reward their cronies who occupy the back rooms of City Hall.
Mr. Humphreville, who writes L.A. Watchdog for CityWatch, is the President of the DWP Advocacy Committee, the Ratepayer Advocate for the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council, and a Neighborhood Council Budget Advocate. He is the publisher of the Recycler Classifieds, www.recycler.com. He may be contacted at lajack@gmail.com Hear Mr. Humphreville every Tuesday morning at 6:20 on McIntyre in the Morning, KABC radio 790.)
