I never did update y’all.
David Nahai, true to his word, has called me several times to confirm that he had followed up and all is well.
I found him to be kind, honest and diligent. I’ve managed to insult him both personally and professionally and he’s responded kindly and patiently.
The news today is that Mr. Nahai will be the new leader of the DWP replacing Ron Deaton.
I cannot imagine more capable hands. I’m thrilled and wish him all the success in the world.
http://www.nbc4.tv/news/4962885/detail.html
Hmm… looks like there could have been human error involved in my power outage.
That’s not the story Andrew Kendall gave me when he called today.
Come on guys, I’m not stupid. I was smart enough to set up this blog so you’d have to respond to me and my unreasonable demands (unreasonable being that I insist you work and are accountable).
So what’s the story?
I’ve been promised by David Nahai and now Mark Hollister from the DWP (who reports to Ron Deaton) that there will be an investigation and I will kept up to date.
I know y’all have seen my email to David and I see that I’m getting hits on a completely un-publicized webpage so my guess is that someone’s taking a look.
I appreciate the candor of Mr. Hollister. I found it beyond amusing that his phone went dead while we were talking and he had to call me from a cell phone.
I’m curious to see how the DWP handles the sleepers.
It’s stunning that our fair Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa sent only the cursory auto reply and that Wendy Gruel’s office hasn’t even done that.
3 days without power doesn’t warrant an email back to a constituent?
The phone just rang.
It was David Nahai.
David is actually the president of an oversight committee for the DWP so when I said
“I also would wonder how one man could manage to work full time in a law office AND efficiently run the DWP?” I was wrong. And I’ll admit it.
He doesn’t run the DWP, he is part of an oversight council.
And I think he’s a straight shooter.
I say think because I don’t know. I had a 3 minute phone call with him where he apologized for the DWP’s failure, called it what it was, never raised his voice and never interrupted me.
He told me about two other committees he sits on and it was all pretty impressive. Not the committee sitting part of things but the fact that I completely insulted him (oops, this gal’s got a tendency to open mouth – insert foot) and he let it slide. Thank goodness because I felt kinda creepy being a little mean when he was being nice and responsive all bundled up as one.
There will be an investigation about the sleeping workers on my street and there’s a meeting tomorrow night of the oversight committee.
I sure hope no one snips my powerlines….
Who’d of thunk it? A chick with a phone and a keyboard just may affect change in this city we all love so much.
FYI Mr. Nahai doesn’t differentiate between The City and The Valley, he thinks of it all as being Los Angeles. That’s the only part of the conversation I don’t think I believe.
Even though I was wrong with my prior post I’m leaving it up.
Why? Because no one asked me to take it down and because every lawyer knows that you can’t unring the bell.
I’ve said it, it’s out there and it’s the sentiments of a woman without power for days on end.
It’s just what ya get around here.
And where there’s smoke there’s fire…
Because we had to light candles in Sherman oaks.
Read this:
In fact, all you need to do is go to the Civil Action Press and punch in DWP to find out about the mismanagement at the DWP.
Shame on you Wendy Gruel… you were warned many years ago.
From http://civilactionpress.blogspot.com/ 2006
I guess we should have seen this miserable failure coming.
The seventy or so employees who reported abuse, mismanagement, and retaliation to the Board of Water and Power Commissioners in January 2006 waited to hear the second installment of words describing the investigatory findings commissioned by the Board of Water and Power Commissioners.
On May 3, 2006, it was disheartening, but not unexpected, to hear David Nahai, Board President, sum up the investigations into management of Custodial Services, Landscaping, Fleet Services, Security, and Information Technology. He said management was found to be “woefully incompetent.” We can be assured those were carefully chosen words. Incompetence, most assuredly, is not, and most likely will never be, a violation at DWP.
In today’s Board meeting, David Nahai took another peddle back and seemed to say the personnel problems at DWP amounted to isolated instances of management miscommunication that were allowed to fester. Moreover, Nahai indicated that the problems were, in many cases, attributed to managers who had retired and were not there anymore. He suggested a little management training may be in order.
This, of course, flies in the face of recent and ongoing litigation, confidential personnel settlements, mismanaged contracts, power outages, a backlog of infrastructure maintenance, high overtime, low productivity, low morale, a number of poor performance audits, and increasing rates.
Spontaneous woeful incompetence must be the new paradigm at DWP. No one seemed surprised enough to ask, “Who is in charge of the woeful incompetence at DWP?”"
An open letter to David Nahai.
Mr. Nahai,
Yesterday I had the misfortune of needing to call the DWP because your workers (two trucks full!) were sleeping contentedly for three full hours on my street while I still had no power.
I called at approximately 2pm on Saturday the 14th. I spent over 40 minutes on the phone.
If you would like to talk to a Los Angeles resident who witnessed first hand the abominable failure of the DWP I would be happy to speak with you.
I also would wonder how one man could manage to work full time in a law office AND efficiently run the DWP?
Best,
Jessica Gottlieb
Rather than send a traditional letter to the Mayor Anontio Villaraigosa and my local councilwoman I thought I’d blog a little just to be certain that my outrage is warranted.
On Tuesday April 10, 2007 I, and many other residents of Los Angeles, popped our property tax bills into mailboxes or paid those bills online. It stings a little to give up thousands of dollars especially when the local public school has been a bit of a failure for my family, but we’ll talk about that later.
Moving forward to Thursday April 12, 2007, the kids are in school and I’m online working when the wind begins. It’s clearly disruptive as the trees sway and debris is moved down our street but I don’t think much of it until the lights begin to flicker.
And then the lights go out.
And then the sirens begin.
And the fire trucks are out en masse because I recognize the sound of those giant red trucks and I’m sure that many of them are false alarms but I also know that this is going to be a horrible day for traffic so I start planning on how I’m going to pick these kids up.
This is all occurring about noontime Thursday.
I go on with my day, fully expecting the power to be restored, I take the kids to their team sports, we get the home work done before the sun sets and decide to eat out rather than risk spoiling more food than necessary.
Dinner at Sisley was lovely but we’re now $45 into the blackout. Thank you very much.
It was a little hard getting everyone to sleep Thursday night because they were scared, the only sounds of our fair city were car accidents and sirens. I assured them the best I knew how that they were safe and put my children to sleep in my bed.
It wasn’t the day one expects when one lives in the best city in the best country in the world!
Friday came with similar challenges and all along I was calling the DWP to find out when power might be restored.
The DWP had a message that was updated a few times a day but always ended with, “be sure to listen to your local radio stations and watch the local news for more updates.”
Um…. okay. I’ve never worked in Corporate America but friends regale me with anecdotes of upwards failure. Could the DWP have fallen prey to this phenomenon?
Friday passes with me calming my family, both my husband and my children. My husband is absolutely outraged. My husband is calm and kind and not easily stirred. I promise you that when you’re reached the point of the local husbands all being furious, you’re failed on a massive scale.
Saturday rolls around and I put my food in the trash every bit of it is spoiled.
Thank you DWP, next time I’ll just run $100 bills through the paper shredder, it will hurt less.
Mayor Villarigosa, when the power was out for 3 days in the Valley did you notice? Is Los Angeles just too big for one administration to handle? The constant car crashes on the exits of the 101 and 405 freeways scared my children. Even as I calmed them I found alternate routes because those exits scared me too. Where were the police? Why didn’t you care about the Valley? Are you aware that we vote too?
Councilwoman Wendy Gruel, my husband called your office on Saturday. He wanted to know why there were neither lights nor police in my neighborhood. We were disappointed (but not at all suprised to find no one in your office).
And DWP I don’t know where to begin. I called for a status report on my neighborhood and you told me that there were 4-5 trucks in the area. I told you that two trucks contained workers and they were sleeping in their trucks. During the 20 or so minutes you had me on hold those trucks (that hadn’t moved for 3 hours) both rolled into another neighborhood.
Were any of this private industry an outside auditor would be on the scene to try and pinpoint where the miserable failure originated from.
I think it’s mid-life obsety.
This city is big and bloated, my local city congresswoman hasn’t done a thing that I can point a finger at and my mayor never met a camera he didn’t like
I live in Sherman Oaks.
It is clear to me that Sherman Oaks and the entirety of the San Fernando Valley should no longer be a part of Los Angeles.
It’s just no fun being an afterthought.
