DWP watchdog plan inches forward

Apr 26 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Rick Orlov Daily News, Los Angeles

A month after voters approved creating a new watchdog for the Department of Water and Power, city officials are trying to sort out how to get started, acknowledging the ballot measure left most of the bureaucratic details to the City Council's discretion.

City Council members were told Monday that one of the first questions for them to decide is how to create the citizens commission that will hire the first executive director of the DWP's new Office of Public Accountability.

They also have to decide how that director will be hired -- and fired.

"The public wants to know that we are dealing with this in a timely fashion," said Councilwoman Jan Perry, chair of the council's Energy and Environment Committee overseeing the DWP. "I think we need to let the public know we heard them and are moving on this."

Perry asked for a report back within the month with recommendations on how to appoint the citizens commission.

The City Council will have to decide whether to appoint someone from each council district and whether the mayor and other citywide elected officials can have appointees.

Or the council could decide to have a smaller commission representing different interest groups of neighborhood councils, business, labor, environmental groups and utility experts.

Former Deputy City Attorney Fred Merkin, who has been hired to help the city draft the different ordinances, said some of the provisions can be simple

if they follow what was done in creating the Inspector General's office in the Los Angeles Police Department.

In appointing a ratepayer advocate, voters said they wanted an independent voice to weigh in on whether any rate increases are justified.

The position is being created at a time when the department is under legislative pressure to increase the amount of power it generates comes from renewable source -- which could add to the amount of their bills.

As part of that, the department is looking at developing what is called a feed-in tariff -- where residents and businesses are reimbursed for energy they develop from solar power panels they install.

DWP General Manager Ron Nichols said he will report back in a month on a pilot program the department hopes to have in place by the end of this year.

"We want to go slow at first, with maybe 3 to 5 megawatts of power, to see if we have the capability to do it right," Nichols said. "We want to get the process right. We want to make sure we have the correct pricing mechanism and the pacing (of installation) to get it done correctly."

The DWP has held a number of workshops with residents, businesses and other utilities -- some as far away as Germany -- to see what they learned about feed-in tariffs, Nichols said.

"The most important thing appears to be the pricing, what we pay back for the power that is generated," Nichols said. "We want it high enough to encourage people to install solar panels, but we also want it to be realistic to reflect how the market will change."

As more residents and businesses install the solar panels, he said, the cost of installation will come down meaning the amount paid for energy will also be reduced.

The DWP will be required under state law to have 33 percent of all its power be from renewable sources by 2020.