Efforts to strike back at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power — at the center of a budget battle between Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council — were not limited to City Hall on Wednesday.
Hours after council members said they wanted more control over the city utility, one former Villaraigosa appointee filed a ratepayer lawsuit, saying the DWP has an obligation to follow through on its promise to transfer $73.5 million to the city’s general fund.
Former DWP commission President Nick Patsaouras said in his lawsuit that the utility already has an 8% surplus, enough to provide the money. “As a taxpayer, I want to compel them, compel the DWP, to honor their commitment,” said Patsaouras, who stepped down from the commission in October 2008.
Meanwhile, school board member Tamar Galatzan said she would introduce a motion next week calling for the DWP to create a new rate classification for the Los Angeles Unified School District, one that would prevent it from paying the same rate as a large business.
Galatzan, who won her seat in 2007 with $2.2 million in support from the mayor, warned that Villaraigosa’s 12-month rate hike plan opposed by the council would cause the school district – which she described as the DWP’s largest customer – to pay an extra $11.7 million a year. That would lead to a loss of hundreds of jobs at a time when the DWP is failing to make a case for more rate hikes, she said.
“I’m wondering, like many people, how they can simultaneously need a rate increase and … transfer excess money into the general fund,” she said.
— David Zahniser at Los Angeles City Hall