Head of L.A.'s water and power utility steps down

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's top executive, H. David Nahai, has resigned from the agency effective immediately, the mayor's office announced this morning.

In a letter to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Nahai said he was leaving to take a position as an advisor to former President Clinton's climate initiative.

Nahai had served two years as a DWP commissioner before Villaraigosa elevated him to the post of chief executive and general manager in 2007. Ever since, he had been under fire from an array of forces.

He drew strong criticism from the head of the powerful International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18, which represents thousands of DWP workers, who accused Nahai of doing too little to secure the passage of Measure B, a solar power ballot proposal that narrowly fell short of passage in March.

Neighborhood councils also complained of a proposal to increase electric rates. Residents of the San Fernando Valley have been upset in recent weeks over the DWP’s water conservation measures, which limited sprinkler use to two days per week. And residents across the city were perplexed by a string of water main breaks, including one that resulted in a sinkhole that gobbled up a portion of a fire truck.

Nahai did have support from environmental circles, however. Last spring, a series of environmental leaders sent Villaraigosa a letter urging him to ignore the complaints and keep Nahai.

"I would like to thank David Nahai for his four years of service at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, where he led the team responsible for increasing the city's renewable energy portfolio, reducing water consumption to record levels, and putting us on the path to be coal free by 2020,'' Villaraigosa said in a statement released this morning.

Villaraigosa has asked the DWP's board of commissioners to temporarily appoint his top environmental advisor, David Freeman, as interim general manager of the utility. Freeman is a former DWP general manager and also served as president of the city harbor commission.

-- Phil Willon and David Zahniser at L.A. City Hall

Comments

[Craig]

As a parting gift for your inept service to the area we are giving you another lifetime pension benefit, free lifetime health care and sending you to another government-waste-of-time job that contributes nothing to society but does line your pockets with gold. Have a good life.

Please usher in the next bureaucrat and start sucking funds out of the system.

[P.A. Cummings]

There was a time when David Freeman was considered a hardworking no-nonsense civil servant, but I am concerned that Freeman has established links with a variety of business people that are looking out for themselves. And the mayor also has links to these folks. The truth is Nahai smelled the rat and opposed some of the moves of Freeman and the Mayor and was forced out.
Mayor V has mismanaged the city-wide solar effort and now his business cohorts are making moves to join the chickens in the hen house.
David Freeman, have you accomplished anything recently? Have you stayed in any agency long enough to execute a plan? have you become a selfish gadfly at the behest of nasty Pols? the answers are NO, NO, Yes!

[linda]

Nahai has had a thankless job. D'Arcy as head of the union which represents DWP workers wanted Nahai to do more to push Measure B because it would have guaranteed work, critics say overpricd work, for union members. But critics saw Nahai as shilling for the union and the mayor's private interests.

Seems anyone associated with the mayor's agenda these days is hated by the general public, rightly or wrongly, there's a perception that it's about doing favors for special interests even if the taxpayers pay the burden. Taxpayer groups are now fighting what they call "Son of Measure B," the union's new version.

The twice a week watering scheme, and not at all during the day, is ridiculous so even Councilman Smith is violating it openly. Lawns go dead, especially bad in high fire danger areas - meanwhile as people have cut back water use 20% our fees are raised to make up the same revenue to DWP and the city. The valley should be urged to replant green lawns with water-efficient plants, nhowever - Councilman Zine said last year he had huge green lawns and rose gardens in his west valley home to "set a good example." That is the WRONG example.

Good luck to Nahai, who should be able to focus on something positive.

[Soliman Abdoh]

This is a very sad day for DWP and Los Angeles for loosing Mr. Nahai and getting Mr. Freeman

[KK]

Money and politics. No more no less. The recent water pipe breakdown ......maybe deliberately up the pressure at the pumping station to scare us taxpayer so that salaries and union jobs will be intact. We need them and they need our wallet. No wonder why we are so broke.

[Mary Hughes]

Now if we could only get Antonio Villaraigosa to resign!

[L G]

Instead of watering yards every Tues, Thurs why not even/odd days to street numbers. The pressure/relaxation on 60 year old pipes would change to more of a constant.

[sheila]

The truth is that LA could have been powered entirely by LOCAL, POINT OF USE SOLAR POWER by now if Freeman, Villaraigosa and Nahai (not to mention D'Arcy) weren't ruining our city.

AB 811 is STILL unfunded, which would provide every property owner an opportunity for a risk-free loan to install PV on their roofs and/or increase the efficiency of their structures. Aside from the conservation and net metering offsets, which would pay for these improvements themselves, a Feed In Tariff could have been paid for excess power fed into the grid. Fastest, cheapest, cleanest and fairest road to clean energy. No dead wilderness, no wasted water, no rate hikes, no risk to lenders or borrowers, no scary DWP monopolies, improved property values, thousands of well-paid jobs, green tech investment - a TOTAL win for every single person in LA.

Instead we got crap like Green Path North (happily sputtering out), Measure B (a joke) and RFPs for dozens of wilderness-killing, expensive, remote power plants. Good riddance, now get rid of Freeman, D'Arcy and Villaraigosa and maybe we can have DEMOCRATIC electricity production that compensates US for doing the right thing.

AB 811 NOW. Generous FEED IN TARIFFS NOW. Stop killing our wilderness, raising our rates and greenwashing it.

[The Truth]

Be careful what you ask for coz you just might get it...

Nahai is out and Freeman is in. Freeman is going to claim credit for all the projects that Nahai has set in motion and blame all rate increases on Nahai even though Freeman is going to be the one pushing for those rate increases.

In this game of politics and musical chairs, the ratepayers of LA are once again the losers...

[Ric]

Yay! Good riddance!!! I never liked that guy anyways. Lets see if he can take the other over paid bureaucrat Raman Raj with him as well.

[Anusia]

Is anyone ever going to investigate where the money is flowing?? All the hikes, measures, God-knows what else, and what do we have for it? Broken pipes, fascist restrictions and of course, more rate increases. Have you checked the size of those pensions these losers are getting? And for doing what exactly?

[Frank]

I just have one word to say about this...Coruption!
Wake Up People....
You don't realize that all high paid officials are looking out for themselves, not the county.

[Collis Huntington]

I guess one has to be a little "crazy" to accept a position like this in the first place. Obviously its a thankless job.

[Matt]

the dwp had developed a huge surplus that the city illegally took. How bout lowering rates for customers? It is a non-profit right?

[Electric Grandma]

I'm with Anusia. All those rate hikes, fascist restrictions (but the Mayor doesn't have to play by the same rules, nor DWP), and we get screwed. And DWP doesn't even drink their own water! I'm sick of it. I use less and less and my bills keep going up. For WHAT? Someone else's golden parachute. Screw that noise.

[Mary]

The DWP are a bunch of crooks! They raise the water and power so their employees can rack up the overtime! The entire department needs to be audited by an independence firm and report to the Governor of California, what am I saying? They are all a punch of crooks

[howardx]

new rule
you cant use the term "fascist" unless you know the definition.

[Meterman]

Here is proof the DWP employees union IBEW is stronger than the mayor, city council and any DWP executive. IBEW union general manager D’Arcy help build the Solar Plan Measure B ratepayer mouse trap and blamed Nahai for not getting it approved by the now educated voters who smelled a rat. The same mouse trap is returning without the vote. Mother of Measure B solar plan is out there ready to be jammed down our throats. DWP refuses to give out the truth on how much its going to cost the ratepayers and limied to IBEW members only.

It was just a couple of months ago Deputy Mayor David Freeman sitting in on a council meeting with DWP GM Nahai and other DWP executives was asked if the city should have a non DWP employee and non government employee hired as a DWP ratepayer advocate? His reply was we don’t need a ratepayer advocate. We have a ratepayer advocate sitting right next to me and he is DWP GM Nahai.

Now as interim DWP GM we end up with this old tired cowboy who is old schooled and taught to hide everything from the ratepayers and taxpayers. He had his chance as DWP GM years ago and left us with a broken infrastructure, useless employee programs, ratepayer programs, non bid backdoor deals with sub contractors and old schooled handwritten technology. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Ramin Raj should be shown the exit door next. He was not honorable and released from DWP and then suddenly rehired. He obliviously knew were the bones were buried. If he gets the GM job watch out account holders just pack your bags and leave town it going to get really ugly.

[MIke P.]

Listen.....DWP never, and I mean never gets credit for anything. They are not taking money from the residents of L.A. I live in Santa Clarita, Edison country, and we pay $.14 more than L.A. residents. You people don't know how lucky you really are. Another thing, the city, police and fire use tax payer money. DWP brings in revenue, it is a rate based company just like Edison, San Diego Gas and Electric etc. They take nothing from the L.A. residents, trust me. They are business. They have very skilled employees in that department, and they really do care and try to help the city of L.A.

[AngelFish777]

David Nahai was probably one of the hardest working, beloved by the employees, giving General Manager/CEOs at LADWP in the past 20 years. He had a heart for the employees and compassion for the well-being of the citizens of LA like none other. He made a concerted effort to build a bridge with the community and really listen to their concerns. He greatly improved employee morale, productivity, and communication at LADWP even paying for hotel rooms for workers' family out of his own pocket when three workers were crticically burned in a vault explosion. He cared about employee input in to the operations of LADWP and was known for his town-hall meetings and monthly employee phone briefings. He will be greatly missed at LADWP.

[RichDavid]

What a mistake that is putting Freeman in charge of anything.
What is he now about 85 years old? But what does anyone expect from this mini-mayor. General managers are leaving in droves. There are many vacancies at the top. Those jobs usually go for political payback for supporting mini-mayor. The City is being mis-managed by this dope. Mini Mayor has the wrong job!

[Julian B Duron]

As reported by: L.A. Watchdog
By Jack Humphreville
IBEW Local 18 investments 1.5 Million dollars to date to the Mayors political machine.
It does not pay, not go along with this Mayoral administrations Political machine.
When the IBEW Union GM is not talking to you and the Mayor chills to you, then it means wake up and smell whats cooking it is you. Get out of Dodge. Bratton and now Mr. H. David Nahai nows knows this.
Best investment IBEW made, is it not?
The goals of this Administration, is not in the best interest of the Taxpaying public. What this city can afford and what this administration wants to spend to be considered part of the Environmentally Green Elitists in not in the best interests of the taxpayers of this City. This City is starting to lose the best of the best and will only get candidates that will agree with this administrations agenda and that is taking care of its campaign contributors.

[ElephantGal]

I worked at DWP for over three years and sadly to say, I've never encountered any organization with this degree of unethical, outdated, socially stratified, and mercenary culture anywhere before. With Nahai as our GM, I saw a hopeful light that things would get better. Nahai was a man of integrity, an inclusive and transformational leader like no other the utility has ever seen in recent years. I feel that he was the only one we had seen in my time who truly cared to make things better. For this he garnered many enemies that worked against him tirelessly. He was forward-thinking and began measures that if unimpeded by powerful factions would have made things better. Now it's back to more old-school inefficiency, self-serving interests and corruption.

[Joseph Hoffman]

Losing Nahai is a great loss. We are very lucky to have L.A. DWP. When all the electric rates went up and still have not returned to pre-enron melt down levels, our DWP kept rates low. Nahai was a water expert, and we were benefiting from it in this city with his water recycling plans. I hope that still goes forward.
The reason we had so many water main failures is due to the fact that DWP had to balance our city water pressure to equal that of the state. Theirs was higher, DWP had to raise L.A.'s beyond our volition. Why the DWP didn't explain this probably has to do with state liability.
Freeman is a good manager with a great record of alternative power sources, and a great deal maker. He wouldn't have let the recent land wind power land deal slip between his fingers as low level engineers did, as chronicled in the Times.

[Mort Allen]

David Nahai was not fired. David quit because he was threatened that if he told the truth to the City Council, there would be dire consequences. If the truth be told, the people would storm City Hall and throw out every elected public official, that is except for Nuch. So now David #2 is sent in to keep the great lie going. What is the great cover-up? Every water main in the City will blow within the next 2 years - a city without water is a dead city. Every major street and canyon road in the City had signs posted NO TRUCKS OVER 2 TONS ALLOWED. 4 years ago all these signs were taken down by DOT. At the same time, the City stopped using Federal gas tax money to repave our streets, instead they began slurry coating to hide the crumbling asphalt. Also at the same time, the Teamsters and CA Trucking Association began running 60 foot long 18 wheel trucks on our City streets, weighing up to 20 tons, on streets legally limited to 2 tons.
These trucks have crushed and cracked the huge water mains under the bad asphalt. The City was not built to handle huge trucks -
unless the City puts back the weight limit signs and tickets the over weight trucks, every water main will blow. Unless the residents of the City are willing to buy Sparketts water to drink, shower, and flush their toilets - they will leave. The Valley will survive because we have the Aquifir and everyone can drill a well.

[ferenc]

why do you think i moved from la in 05? corrupt politicians, city, stste county employees; criminal unions etc etc. now i live in a smaller community, so the corruption here is less obvious but its still here. i think the usa is the most corrupt country in the world claiming it is not.kick all of the republicans and democrats out of office and let's start over. also lawyers are excluded from office. only people who have worked as employees at least 10 years can run for office.