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Native American leaders are furious with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass after she abruptly replaced the first-ever Native American commissioner of the Department of Water and Power (DWP) with a “queer” white male. Mayor Bass removed Cynthia Ruiz, who had only been in office a year, and is well-liked by stakeholders, with George McGraw, a “a leading queer voice in social entrepreneurship, environmental justice, and water.”

A six-stone emaciated man who was deemed 'fit to find work' by the DWP has died. Stephen Smith, 64, died on Monday, after struggling with a number of severe health problems. His case hit the headlines recently when a fitness for work assessment by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) denied him vital benefits. Shocking images showed the 64-year-old Liverpool man emaciated in hospital after he was admitted with pneumonia. However, despite his glaringly obvious poor health and worrying weight loss, Mr Smith was forced to leave hospital to fight a decision by the DWP which insisted he was...

The 230 Kilovolt equipment, which carries high voltage electricity and distributes it to customers in the surrounding area, caught fire, according to a LADWP press release. The fire only affected one portion of the station but power to and from the facility has been shut off while LAFD personnel work to put the fire out, the Department added. Residential and commercial customers across San Fernando Valley are without power and the blackout extends for 15-square miles, according to the LADWP. ... Crews will begin reenergizing affected areas once the fire has been extinguished. Power is expected to be out for...

Federal authorities are investigating the deaths of at least six golden eagles at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's Pine Tree Wind Project in the Tehachapi Mountains, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday. So far, no wind-energy company has been prosecuted by federal wildlife authorities in connection with the death of birds protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. A prosecution in the Pine Tree case could cause some rethinking and redesigning of this booming alternative energy source. Facilities elsewhere also have been under scrutiny, according to a...

Published: March 12, 2010 SoCal Connected Investigates The Price of Power New Episode Airs Thursday, March 18 AT 8:00 PM /snip In the middle of the worst budget crisis in Los Angeles history, one department is thriving without mandatory job cuts, furlough days or loss of the perks they've come to enjoy. In fact, thanks to a new contract approved by the L.A. City Council in December, most of its already well-paid workers will get salary increases over the next five years. Which department is it? It's the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) and this week SoCal...

The hike would pay for more aggressive conservation programs and a solar plan designed to create 16,000 jobs as well as cover the fluctuating price of coal and natural gas. Households that get their power from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power could see their electric bills go up between 8.8% and 28.4%, depending on where they live and how much energy they use, under a plan unveiled Monday by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa challenged residents this summer to "change course" and slash their water use by 10% in the face of a historic drought. But records show that the mayor and several other top city officials have long been heavy water users themselves. In Villaraigosa's case, even if he had made a 10% reduction at the two homes where he has lived since winning election in 2005, he still would have used nearly twice as much water as comparable properties in the vicinity. City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo and Councilman Tony Cardenas surpassed the mayor, using more than twice...

DUBAI DUETS Late Friday, Department of Justice lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel were attempting to determine if former President Bill Clinton had registered as an "Agent of a Foreign Principal." Federal statute requires that anyone -- even a former President -- doing political or public affairs work on behalf of a foreign country, agency or official must register with the Department, and essentially update his status every six months. It was not clear the Clinton had done so. If his status is less clear, here is what we do know: If Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton did not know...

A state Court of Appeal panel has upheld a court order to ban Los Angeles from using a key aqueduct if it doesn't restore a 62-mile stretch of the Owens River. Wednesday's decision by 4th Appellate District panel in Riverside upheld a ruling last year that imposed sanctions against Los Angeles. Owens Valley residents, environmental groups and state officials claimed victory. "This may be the final salvo in the longest-running fight over an environmental impact report in California history," said Gordon Burns, deputy solicitor general for Attorney General Bill Lockyer. "Now, everybody is holding tight and hoping the city will...

The City Ethics Commission has violated the law for a decade by failing to notify city agencies of sanctions against dozens of people who money-laundered tens of thousands of dollars to political candidates, the Daily News has learned. The notification failure means leaders of city agencies - who award millions of dollars in contracts - may have been unaware that some bidders who laundered campaign funds should be ineligible for city business under the four-year-ban rule. As investigations of possible City Hall corruption continue, the breach in ethics enforcement rules raises new questions about whether effective measures are in place....

Capping a five-week trial that grew out of a sweeping investigation into City Hall corruption, a federal jury on Tuesday found two former Fleishman-Hillard executives guilty of padding bills to the DWP by more than $300,000. Doug Dowie, a power broker who headed the Los Angeles office of the prestigious public relations firm, and John Stodder, his right-hand man, showed little emotion as the verdicts were read by U.S. District Judge Gary Allen Feess. The jury deliberated 51/2 days before finding Dowie, 58, and Stodder, 50, guilty of conspiracy and wire fraud charges. Dowie faces up to 240 years in...

A friend, usually most interested in a newspaper's business section, e-mailed his take on the Dubai Ports World issue and asked, "Is this the international equivalent of driving while black, only shipping while Arab?" Though the ongoing debate is a complex intersection of foreign investment, homeland security and government secrecy issues, it is hard to ignore the suggestion of racial profiling or the wider implications for American policy in the Middle East. After all, 80 percent of the ports in the United States are managed by foreign companies. A stevedorer partially owned by the Chinese government runs operations at Long...

"...Clearly a lot of the criticism has been xenophobic. Notwithstanding pro forma demurrals, the driving theme here is that “Arabs”—usually talked of generically as if there were no difference between those in Dubai, say, and those in Baghdad or Benghazi—can’t be trusted to operate American ports. When Bush says the posturing on Capital Hill is sending the wrong signal to some of the few friends the United States has left in the Arab world, he’s right..."

Without first going to neighborhood councils or conducting an independent financial review, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power officials pushed on Tuesday for rapid approval of a 4.3 percent water-rate hike as part of a nearly 20 percent proposed hike over the next five years. The renewed effort to boost water rates comes less than a year after an uproar from the city's network of neighborhood councils forced the City Council to block a 7 percent increase that was supposed to take effect July 1. The council agreed last year to an 11 percent increase and won commitments from...

The former head of Fleishman-Hillard's Los Angeles public relations office who got millions of dollars in city contracts while providing free services to Mayor James Hahn's administration was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on 16 counts of fraud and conspiracy. In the latest development in the investigation of City Hall corruption, Douglas R. Dowie, 57, of West Hills was accused in a 14-page indictment of bilking the city Department of Water and Power out of at least $300,000 over a four-year period. The firm held a $3 million-a-year contract with the DWP as well as public relations contracts...

The federal investigation of City Hall corruption will lead to a second indictment soon in connection with alleged overbilling of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power by the Fleishman-Hillard public-relations firm, Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam D. Kamenstein disclosed in court Monday. Kamenstein told U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess that there would be a superseding indictment, which would add one other individual as a defendant, in the 11-count wire-fraud case against John Stodder, a former senior vice president at Fleishman-Hillard. Kamenstein offered no other details beyond indicating that the indictment could come down before the May 17 runoff...

According to James Hahn's spokesman, the mayor was "outraged" -- outraged, mind you -- that the public relations firm he was channeling millions of dollars to stands accused of stealing from the taxpayers. The federal grand jury indictment last week of recently discharged Fleishman-Hillard executive John Stodder on 11 counts of defrauding the Department of Water and Power, the Port of Los Angeles and two private clients seems to have surprised no one but Hahn. Federal and district attorney investigators have been tearing apart the Hahn administration's "pay-to-play" contracting practices for more than a year, while City Controller Laura Chick's...

A Los Angeles federal grand jury today indicted a former high-ranking executive of the Fleishman-Hillard public relations firm for his part in a scheme that defrauded the Dept. of Water and Power of at least $250,000 and cheated private clients by lesser amounts. The indictment alleges that John Stodder, Jr., a one-time partner and senior vice president who ran the firm's local public affairs practice, participated with "others known and unknown" to routinely submit inflated billings to the DWP, the Port of Los Angeles, the World Wide Church of God and the firm of world-renown architect Frank Gehry. Law enforcement...

Four local governmental entities have joined a whistle-blower legal action claiming the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power overbilled them by about $140 million since 1990, according to a lawsuit unsealed Monday. Accusations of false claims and other irregularities were made by the county of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Los Angeles Community College District. The action had been foreshadowed March 22, when Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed a separate legal claim alleging $60 million in DWP overbillings. The claimants are seeking damages that could cost...