By Tony Wilkinson The Los Angeles City Council's Rules committee, with input from Mayor Eric Garcetti, will announce its revised proposal for DWP Reform sometime between next Wednesday and Friday, June 1 to 3. This is the last chance for input before the plan gets made. If you have strong opinions on what should be [...]
By Tony Wilkinson The Department of Water and Power Reform measure (CF 16-0093) will soon go to the kitchen. By the end of May, City Council President Herb Wesson, with input from Mayor Eric Garcetti, will make sausage out of all the separate reforms in the proposal. His Rules committee will then ask the City [...]
By Tony Wilkinson Long journeys begin with a single step. The road to a 21st century workforce at LADWP could start with a public vote to free the utility from the Charter requirement that it use the city's Civil Service system. Let's say the citizen-owners of the utility do approve that exemption. The next day [...]
Dear Friend: Your voice matters and is an important part of the Los Angeles City Council's efforts to reform the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP). The DWP is the largest publicly-owned utility in the nation and ratepayers who own the utility, deserve a department that is responsive to their needs. As such, [...]
By Tony Wilkinson How well can you manage a high technology business when its employment system is purposely designed to create lifetime jobs and to assure that nearly all managers come from existing employees? Will a 100 percent "inbred" system allow the Department of Water and Power to adapt to fast-changing technology, to competition, and [...]
By Tony Wilkinson Mayor Eric Garcetti has responded to the recommendations of the December DWP IEA Survey and the recent requests of Neighborhood Councils. He has formed a diverse community panel to advise the city on DWP Reform. The Mayor’s DWP Reform Working Group will meet weekly during the month of May. It will help [...]
By Tony Wilkinson How many experts need to say that LADWP cannot meet its future challenges if it continues to be managed the way it is today? The 1999 RAND study, 2009 IEA Survey, 2020 Commission report, and 2015 IEA Survey all make this point. http://dwpreform.lacity.org/html/relatedDocuments.html The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is [...]
By Tony Wilkinson There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment,” wrote the 17th-century French anti-royal rebel Jean-François-Paul de Gondi, “and the masterpiece of good ruling is to know and seize this moment." For DWP Reform, this moment is now. On January 22, Los Angeles City Councilmember Felipe Fuentes released [...]
By Tony Wilkinson "Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made" wrote American poet and satirist John Godfrey Saxe in 1869. Drafting legislation is just as messy a process today. Thanks to the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council system, everyday Angelinos can be part of that sausage-making process. [...]
By Tony Wilkinson "We’re not interested in what your problem is. We just want you to turn around and stop taking our money and going up on the rates" said Earis Vails, an African-American bus driver who lives in South L.A. She was talking to reporter Gene Maddaus of "LA Weekly". Earlier Vails had asked [...]
