Lomax DWP Nomination

Re the article titled “Bradley Nominates Lomax for DWP Post: Move Draws Criticism” (July 15):

When Mayor Tom Bradley talked with me regarding my nomination to the Department of Water and Power Commission, he stressed his desire both to improve the agency’s affirmative action profile and to continue the commission’s environmental activism. I told him I would be a strong advocate in both of these areas. My record on civil rights is well known. But instead of asking for my position on environmental issues, a few members of the City Council appear to be dismissing, out of hand, my sensitivity to these issues.

What I find troubling about the opposition to my nomination by some is the pointed references to my tenure on the Police Commission and the narrowness of the definition of an “environmentalist.”

While I have my critics from my brief, but lively, tenure on the Police Commission, the events of this year have provided significant vindication of my earlier views. I believe that the majority of people in Los Angeles feel that my actions were effective and in the public interest. In the aftermath of the civil disturbances and in light of still existing ethnic divisions, the controversy of last year should not be revisited.

Further, there are no blacks on the Department of Water and Power Commission. According to Mayor Bradley, the department has one of the city’s worst records on affirmative action. People should ask why a few appear to be saying that black representation should be ignored in favor of maintaining a so-called “environmentalist seat,” especially when the commission has two other “environmentalists” and is ethnically and racially imbalanced.

Minorities have as strong a stake as anyone else in protecting the Earth and there are very serious issues regarding disparate environmental treatment that are currently being studied.

I consider myself to be fair, able, and interested, and representative of an important segment of Los Angeles that is not currently represented. What more is required of a candidate for a citizen panel such as the DWP Board of Commissioners?

MELANIE E. LOMAX

Los Angeles