Kari Moran
March 12, 2009
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KPCC'S Kari Moran talks to Marc Haefele, dean of the city hall reporters, about Measure B, the city of Los Angeles's solar power measure, and about how it's headed for defeat.
Kari Moran: You're listening to 89.3 KPCC, Southern California Public Radio. And joining us, as he does every Thursday, is Marc Haefele, the dean of city hall reporters.
Marc, the absentee ballots are still being counted, but it appears that Measure B, the city of L.A.'s solar power measure, is headed for defeat. Now you didn't like Measure B because it didn't have a clear price tag, and you felt it set up a sweetheart deal for the electrical workers' union. But you do think the city needs to pursue some sort of Measure B type solar initiative, right?
Marc Haefele: Well, we still need its jobs badly in this economy, and we need the solar power. We have to look at how Prop B's goals can be attained by means more appealing to the voters, or even going around them completely.
These are goals that the voting majority and the measure's opponents seem to agree on – more jobs, less fossil fuel use, particularly by the DWP's giant out-of-state coal burning plants. But a slipshod, under-researched proposal with a blank price tag, that also handed the entire project to probably the region's richest union, just didn't work.
Moran: So, what actually
will work to shrink L.A.'s massive carbon footprint on the environment?
Haefele: Well, the experts say the city needs to seek participation in the workforce for all of the construction trade unions in L.A., including the carpenters and laborers, who ended up opposing B because they were shut out.
Under the law, the city can't give unions, other than those already working for the city, exclusive rights to any given work project, but it can set up programs where the unions can, as they did at Playa Vista, under a current CRA program, establish apprenticeships, particularly for at-risk youth. That can create a dedicated, well-trained solar workforce, in and out of unions.
Moran: What else do you think the proposition needs to fly?
Haefele: Well, the DWP should give the customers something. A payment credit for putting in solar power, for instance, like the $100 credit they gave for customers with the low-flow toilet program. That's still about the most successful DWP eco-program in history.
And then, another thing they should do is try to help local business and local nonprofits get a piece of the action. That's the same way that the private utilities, the gas company and Edison, have done with their energy savings programs.
Moran: Does this actually need to be a ballot initiative after all, or can it be done some other way?
Haefele: I'm not sure it needs to be a ballot initiative. An awful lot of what we've been talking about could be done simply out of city hall council chamber, it could be ordinances, it could be orders from the mayor, it could be even administrative memoranda from department heads.
And as it is, even without B, the DWP union workforce is going to be able to do at least half of what was proposed in B, because it's all on city property. So I'm not, I think this was just a bad idea.
I think it's like Antonio failed to go to the voters and messed up the school situation, you recall, a couple of years ago, for taking over the schools, and now he's, when he doesn't need to go to the voters, and what should be legislating it, he goes to the voters and gets his tushie handed to him. I think this is what we call learning on the job.
Moran: Thanks Marc. That was Marc Haefele, the dean of city hall reporters on 89.3, KPCC.
