{"id":381114,"date":"2010-03-02T14:06:29","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T19:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"tag:ronkayela.com,2010:\/\/1.964"},"modified":"2010-03-02T14:37:32","modified_gmt":"2010-03-02T19:37:32","slug":"the-fate-of-la-in-his-hands-heaven-help-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/381114","title":{"rendered":"The Fate of LA in His Hands, Heaven Help Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"owensvalley1.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>The Department of Water and Power is at the heart of the story of Los Angeles’ transformation into the city it is today, the light and the dark of it, the play of good and evil.<\/p>\n

It is the soul of LA, the shimmering lights and hopes of the city and the dark side of its “Chinatown” past — and present.<\/p>\n

Writer Yasha Levine in an article on Alternet.org t<\/a>oday and excerpted on OurLA.org<\/a> captures the origins of this story from the theft of the water in Owens Valley a century ago that turned the spectacular beauty of the area into a dust bowl to the DWP’s plan now to cover the lake bed with 80 square miles of solar panels, the largest such installation in the world.<\/p>\n

“L.A.’s New Scheme to Plunder Owens Valley Water, This Time with Solar Panels” reads the headline. “L.A. has sold the idea of enriching the residents of the Owens river valley before, while ripping them off in the dark. Will the residents buy into it.”<\/p>\n

The story links back to an article at SierraWave.net<\/a> about the visit to Owens Valley in January of David Freeman, interim general manager of the DWP, a post assigned him after he served as Harbor Commission president and deputy mayor for energy and the environment.
\"freeman1.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>
Freeman is the darling of environmentalists, the apostle of solar energy — and a profiteer in clean energy like the mayor’s behind-the-scenes political operative Ari Swiller and others who have found Antonio Villaraigosa an easy mark for their hustles.<\/p>\n

With his cowboy hat and sweet-talking good old boy southern malarkey, Freeman was resurrected by the mayor with the help of his business partner, Swiller. <\/p>\n

It’s dirty little power games these clean energy advocates and investors play.<\/p>\n

Apart from his connections, Freeman has the credibility to get away with
\n lying through his teeth, telling whoppers so big and so smoothly that he is one of the greatest con men in a city filled with con artists. It’s that quality that got him fired by Mayor Richard Riordan a decade ago as DWP general manager. It’s that quality that allowed him to preserve his reputation despite wasting tens of millions of dollars on green energy without actually generating any.<\/p>\n

Back in January, Freeman brought his act to what he regarded as easy marks in the Owens Valley. <\/p>\n

About 200 people came to a Methodist Church to hear his pitch to pave the dust bowl with solar panels and make them all rich, according to SierraWave.net
<\/a>
“He made them laugh and he made some mad,” reported Bennett Kessler, describing Freeman as being “viewed as a man with the personal power to push projects through and
\nmanipulate people in the way.”<\/p>\n

The next day before the County Board of supervisors, Freeman used “the same country charm … found mostly a  positive response until Supervisor Susan Cash laid out the colonial
\nfailures of DWP to treat the Owens Valley as an equal, to treat people
\nand the land with respect,” Kessler reported.. <\/p>\n

Cash seized on a comment by Freeman regarding his refusal to release DWP land around Inyo that strangles its economic development, saying, “You closed that door. More conversations need to be had. This
\nis not pristine land here.” <\/p>\n

She challenged him on DWP’s failure to live up to its 20-year-old agreement to restore the area to its “pristine” past and other issues,  “I feel like you’re bringing me flowers and won’t show up for the
\nrest of the dates.”<\/p>\n

Finally, she threw in Freeman’s face that he had told KABC that DWP owns Inyo
\nlock, stock and barrel. “Don’t you see that’s offensive?” said Cash.
\nFreeman denied saying it. Cash called his hand on the lie. “I saw you
\nsay it on television,” she said.<\/p>\n

Freeman reached for an excuse.
\n“I was making a joke.” That didn’t fly with Cash. “The internet words
\n‘epic fail’ come to mind,” she said. “Some people don’t like our
\nstyle,” Freeman said.<\/p>\n

Freeman is a liar who will say anything to get his way and with the bottomless pit of DWP ratepayer money and the political clout of LA, he will undoubtedly be able to pay off the folks in Inyo to let the DWP plunder them again. It’s why he fits in so well as part of the mayor’s team.
<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

This is an administration that thinks only of its own political, and
\n in some cases economic, advantage without regard to the public
\ninterest, without regard to the quality of life in the city, without
\nregard to the future.<\/p>\n

It’s why the irritating David Nahai was
\nfired and the seductive Freeman was brought in.<\/p>\n

The mayor tries
\nto portray himself as the green mayor of the “greenest city in America”
\nwhen he actually has done precious little to deserve the title,
\ninitiated not a single major green energy project — until now.<\/p>\n

Now,
\n the mayor and the DWP are desperate. <\/p>\n

LA has the dirtiest
\ncoal-burning power portfolio in America, a rotting infrastructure for
\nwater and power, the least renewable energy of any major utility in the
\nstate, and rates that have been rising rapidly despite its advantages to
\n keep them low. <\/p>\n

It’s biggest problem, apart from a long history
\nof sweetheart deals with contractors and mismanagement, is its labor
\ncosts. DWP workers are paid 30 to 40 percent more than other city
\nworkers for comparable jobs, paid 20 percent more than other utility’s
\nworkers for most jobs. That’s why the infrastructure is rotting and
\nthere’s so little green energy.<\/p>\n

The desperation comes from the
\nstate mandate for utilities to generate 20 percent of the city’s energy
\nby the end of this year, and by the mayor’s boast to reach 40 percent
\nand get rid of the coal-burning power plants by 2020\/<\/p>\n

When you’ve bankrupted the city to the point basic services are being
\nslashed and you’re selling off the city’s assets to your friends at a
\nfire sale, you need to do something to save your political career. If
\nyou’re in that position, your name is Antonio Villaraigosa.<\/p>\n

So he has bet his career on David Freeman’s ability to sell the City
\nCouncil, which lives in fear of seeing their own careers go up in the
\nsmoke of their gross financial mismanagement, on approving spectacularly
\n higher rates for decades to come without a ratepayer rebellion.<\/p>\n

Billions of dollars, tens of billions of dollars, are needed but there
\nis no plan, no long-term methodical approach on how to rebuild the
\ninfrastructure and generate clean power and provide clean water.<\/p>\n

There is only desperation and a plan to just get through this year and
\npossibly next — just like there is no plan to get through the budget
\ncrisis beyond this year and next.<\/p>\n

The mayor wants every ratepayer to cough up just $2.50 a month to
\ngenerate all of $30 million a year to replace the dirty coal-burning
\nplants. At that rate it would take most of a century to get the job done
\n — at which Freeman says with poetic flourish the planet will be dead
\nbecause LA didn’t go solar fast enough without regard to cost or
\nefficiency.<\/p>\n

Of course, the $2.50 surcharge will soon by $5 and then $10 and then
\nwhatever it takes to save himself and keep up the myth of his
\nleadership.<\/p>\n

The DWP has its own plan for the next year. It’s called the ECAF (Energy
\n Cost Adjustment Factor) and is supposed to allow for quick increases in
\n rates to reflect fluctuations in gas and coal prices. The ECAF is now
\nlimited to 1 percent per quarter and Council approval isn’t needed.<\/p>\n

Back in September, the DWP tried to increase the ECAF to 20 percent per
\nquarter but Council members panicked at the prospect of public outrage
\nand squelched that.<\/p>\n

So now the DWP has come back with a new plan to impose and 8 percent
\nECAF increase on April 1 as part of an overall 20 percent increase in
\nthe next 12 months, a 33 percent increase over the past two years that
\namounts to $700 million a year in extra revenue, $130 million of which
\nwill go directly into the general fund to help bail the city out of its
\nbudget crisis..<\/p>\n

There is no plan beyond next year — at least none that the public, the
\nratepayers are allowed to know. <\/p>\n

Given the DWP and City Hall’s desperation, there is no doubt this is
\njust the beginning, the years ahead will be worse for the public with
\nrates doubling and tripling by 2020.<\/p>\n

Contracts to buy solar and wind energy are stacked up waiting for the
\nDWP to find the money to pay for them to meet the 2010 goal of 20
\npercent renewable energy goal. <\/p>\n

The DWP is paying premium open market prices for this energy and doesn’t
\n own it although officials justified their rooftop solar energy plan
\nunder Measure B — a plan that would have required all $3 billion in
\nsolar being owned and maintained by the DWP and its union, IBEW Local
\n11.<\/p>\n

Voters saw through the costly lie and rejected Measure B but the mayor
\nhas so little respect for the people, he has greenlighted the same plan
\nanyway because IBEW bully boss Brian D’Arcy provides much of the
\ncampaign cash that keeps him and the Council in office.<\/p>\n

So his future, the DWP’s future, the city’s future, is in the trembling
\nhands of none other than David Freeman.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Freeman is the problem, not the solution.<\/p>\n

He took over as interim GM with the promise that a qualified utility
\nmanager would take over within six months. The six months is up because
\nnobody qualified will take the job since they are well aware that
\nFreeman’s next post is going to be president of the DWP Commission or
\nonce again Deputy Mayor for energy and the environment.<\/p>\n

Why would anyone take over a utility with as many problems as the DWP, a
\n utility that has lost the confidence of the people, when they would
\nfacing constant interference from Freeman and the politicians and a
\nunion that has all the power?<\/p>\n

The Chinatown story was about the rape of the land and water from the
\nOwens, land we still own and water we still use, the theft of the entire
\n San Fernando Valley to store the water in natural underground caverns
\nand for real estate developments that made billionaires of insiders.<\/p>\n

Chinatown II is about the rape of Los Angeles itself to enrich a new
\ngroup of insiders, to protect politicians who have failed us in every
\nway. If we don’t resist this assault, it won’t matter much whatever else
\n we do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Department of Water and Power is at the heart of the story of Los Angeles’ transformation into the city it is today, the light and the dark of it, the play of good and evil. It is the soul of LA, the shimmering lights and hopes of the city and the dark side of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-381114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}