The Los Angeles City Council is etching a series of measures to reform the city’s municipal power agency expected to be on the March 2011 ballot. In action late last month, two council committees forwarded their ballot measure recommendations on Los Angeles Department of Water & Power to the full council. Under their action detailed in an October 29 report, the council would gain greater control over the department’s budget, plus the power to remove members of the department’s board of commissioners and general manager. In addition, the measure would create an independent ratepayer advocate office with broad power to investigate the department’s management, including authority to rout out any fraud and abuse. “We’re attempting to give a framework for the ratepayer” to get unbiased information about the muni, said council member Jan Perry. She added that the upcoming ballot measure, if approved by the full council, would create greater transparency at the department and better define a public process for decision making. “It’s a real quantum leap from where we are now,” said Chuck Ray, vice president of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council LADWP Oversight Committee. The neighborhood councils have pushed for reform at LADWP for more than a year. City council members joined in calling for reform after a struggle last spring over the transfer of $73.5 million in surplus funds from the department’s budget to the general fund of the financially ailing city. LADWP tried to withhold the transfer, which normally is routine and is seen as a substitute source of income for the property taxes and fees a private utility company would pay to the city in the absence of a public power agency. After considerable maneuvering and a 4.5 percent rate increase, the department wound up transferring the money. Environmentalists endorsed the reforms, though an association of ex-muni managers said it would oppose them. A powerful business group, known as the Valley Industry & Commerce Association, also opposed many of the reforms, including the council gaining more control over the muni’s budget.
