The Most Powerful Municipal Utility in the United States | Hacker News Reader

The Most Powerful Municipal Utility in the United States

williamha.com

Estimated bills are perfectly normal, sounds like the author has an axe to grind and is clutching at straws. All his friend had to do is give an actual meter reading.

Also complaining about a company paying their staff well is pretty depressing. How is this crazy inequality between the top 10% going to get fixed unless staff are paid more? And yet here is someone complaining about a workforce that obviously have a strong union and insinuating it is corruption. Very sad.

(Source, temped at electricity company in UK while at uni).

Its not that easy, I have been through this in Ontario, Canada. Use to call in every month with actual meter reading and still get crazy bills. I then started taking pictures of the meter every month and told them to fix the issue or I will contact local media. It turned out the issue was systematic

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/hydro-one-react...

Despite its internal issues and the damage it has caused to the Owens Valley that it has caused over time, the LA DWP has one thing going for it: It doesn't have to deliver a profit to investors. To me, this eclipses the fact that some people may be overpaid.

If you live in a city served by an investor-owned utility, and the LA DWP, you'll pay considerably less for electric power per kilowatt hour from the DWP, then you will from someone like Southern California Edison.

I'm of the opinion that utilities should be non-profit entities along with education and healthcare. I know this will stick in the craw of some people, but having to pay dividends to investors is what causes electric rates to be too high. Also, I believe that overpaying the employees of a public utility can be tolerated in moderation, and that the additional salary paid out is money put to better use than paying dividends to investors.

I have another story of LADWP. About 3-5 years ago, I read in LA Times the story of union members of LADWP filling the LA City Hall Council Meeting demanding pay raise. City was resisting it.

The very next day (or week), power to the LAPD HQ and LA City Hall Building were cut for a few hours (or a day?). No other area of LA had power outage.

I spent a few minutes searching for the 2 stories but couldn't quite find it. But it did happen.

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