DWP Bill for Catering Denounced : Utilities: City controller says agency’s ex-chief, not public, should pay $60,000 tab for ‘outrageous food fest’ held after strike.

The former head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and not the utility’s ratepayers, should be forced to pay a catering bill run up by employees after last year’s strike, city Controller Rick Tuttle said in a letter Friday to the City Council.

Tuttle urged the council to reject the $60,000 payment approved by the city utility last week, saying it would be “the largest example of what I would consider a gift of public funds” that he has encountered since taking office in 1985.

Tuttle said the payment to the caterer, Marriott Corp., should be made by former DWP General Manager Dan Waters, who retired this year.

The dispute dates to September, when Marriott delivered food for thousands of employees on Sept. 10, a day after the end of a nine-day strike by DWP workers.

The department’s management said the food was for a peacemaking gathering of workers and managers to heal the hard feelings from the work stoppage. But Tuttle called the food giveaway an “outrageous food fest.”

On Friday he wrote that Waters “should be liable . . . for his poor judgment and abuse of authority.”

“It is my position that managers must learn to treat the public’s money as if it were their own,” Tuttle wrote. “I can think of no better way to do this than to ask for a general manager to pay out of his or her own pocket for irresponsible actions.”

Waters could not be reached for comment, but DWP spokesman Mike Moore said it was unfair to single out Waters out for criticism.

“Mr. Waters was not the only one who was involved in the decision,” Moore said. “It was with all the managers, who were charged with bringing this organization back together after a very difficult night.”

The DWP commission, which approved the Marriott payment July 7, cited advice from the city attorney’s office that the bill had to be paid because the city had ordered and accepted the food.

The commission found that “the food provided on Sept. 10, 1993, to employees at no charge served the public purpose of commencing and expediting the healing process after the strike.”

The action came despite Tuttle’s previous opposition and a recommendation by the City Council not to pay the bill.

The last council action was not binding. To assert jurisdiction now, two-thirds of the 15 city lawmakers would have to vote to do so. The deadline for overturning the DWP action is Wednesday.

The post-strike catering was only the last in nearly $800,000 in food expenses run up by the utility that were linked to the strike, according to Tuttle’s office.

Most of that money was spent to feed department managers who kept the water and electric system operating during the nine-day work stoppage.

The latest flap is not the first one to hit Waters since his retirement. Several months ago, city officials complained bitterly when they learned that Waters remained on the DWP payroll even after retiring to collect hundreds of hours of compensatory time he had accrued over the years.