Villaraigosa

The Mayor went with a close ally who shares his goals to increase the development of renewable energy sources to head the Department of Water and Power. LAT:

As he stood next to the mayor, Nahai vowed to put the utility at the forefront in the development of renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind.

"I see the bright promise of greening this utility . . . and having Los Angeles become the center, and the leader, for renewable energy," he said.

Nahai said he would assemble a DWP management team to specifically focus on renewable energy.

Developing renewable energy sources is critical to our sustainability and it is great to see it getting such a high priority. The key will be:, does the city simply purchase not so green power from out of state and ship it in, or does it develop it locally, emphasizing both good jobs and a clean environment?

Meanwhile, the environmental community is thrilled to see Nahai get the gig.

Nahai's nomination has the backing of several key environmentalists, who have lobbied the mayor's office and at least two council members for his appointment.

Former DWP chief S. David Freeman, a Villaraigosa ally who is considered one of the city's leading environmentalists, said Nahai would restore the utility to its "glory days."

"We finally have got the mayor's vision, and the general manager's ability, on the same page," said Freeman, who is Villaraigosa's president of the city's Harbor Commission.

It is an intriguing choice for his No. 2. LAT:

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced today he had hired as his No. 2 policy advisor one of the city's top public interest lawyers -- an attorney who spent nearly a decade advocating on behalf of immigrants, low-income neighborhoods and homeless residents in need of legal representation.

Villaraigosa's deputy chief of staff will be Dan Grunfeld, president and chief executive of Public Counsel, the largest organization in the United States that provides legal aid to the poor and disenfranchised.

Grunfeld, who will coordinate Villaraigosa's policy agenda, has never worked for a government agency. Still, the Beverlywood resident said he had a background in policy, having teamed up with Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley to fight elder abuse and having sued Kaiser Permanente over the alleged dumping of homeless patients on skid row.

Hopefully this choice will lead to some smoother sailing for the Mayor, after quite the rocky last couple months. Having an advocate for the poor in the upper ranks of the administration sounds like a good idea to me.

There is nothing that a newspaper columnist loves more than a gotcha moment of contradiction with a politician. The article in today's LAT on Mayor Villaraigosa follows a well worn path. Politician makes a promise. Reporter gets a tip from one of their political rivals or comes up with the idea on their own. They do a little digging and find an inconsistency. Breathlessly, they publish it, allowing folks a whack at the piñata.

In this case, it was the Mayor's plea for individuals to cut back on their water use by 10%. One would think that they would have tracked his water use over time and shown that it would have gone up or stayed static to prompt a story. No, in this case it was the fact that his water use was significantly higher than comparable properties in the area. I am not going to defend the Mayor on this one. I am sure that he could find ways to reduce his water impact significantly. Indeed, what was greatly missing from this discussion was the use of native plantings, instead of lush landscapes that are water eaters.

Instead of prompting a discussion about ways politicians are working to reduce their water, or even finding proof that they have failed to do as promised, the immediately placed them on the defensive. In Villaraigosa's case, he had a unique defense: gophers.

Villaraigosa blamed his comparatively high water use at Mount Washington on gophers that chewed holes through a rubberized drip-irrigation system installed beneath his hillside backyard to protect against erosion and to ostensibly save water.

"We were unable to determine there was a leak. It's underground," he said. "We intended to conserve water by purchasing a drip water system."

Villaraigosa said he did not notice increases in his water bill because his wife handled that chore. "I didn't have access to those bills," he said.

Note to politicians: water bills are public information. They can be used to establish residency (Ed Jew in SF) or fodder for columnists like this one. I hope they follow up with the Mayor in a few months to see if he has gotten his act in gear. If he hasn't, then that is a real story.

The coverage of the IBEW video has been pretty good in the local press. Here is a clip from KNBC on the video and the protest at the DWP meeting. It also has some good commentary from Working Californians' co-chair Brian D'Arcy.

For background, see my post from yesterday.

Its OUR Health Care has the remarks of Mayor Villaraigosa up on YouTube from their rally down in LA. The Maria he is referring to is Maria Elena Durazo is the Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the LA Labor Federation.