DWP Commission Votes to Follow Living Wage Law

Just a few days after both the City Council and the mayor urged Department of Water and Power commissioners to support the city’s living wage law, the commission voted unanimously Tuesday to do just that.

The City Council had taken the increasingly common tactic of asserting authority over the commission and was planning to vote tonight to require the municipal utility to abide by the living wage law. Council members said Tuesday that they no longer need to take that step.

“Good, excellent,” said Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, who had brought the issue to her colleagues last week. “That’s all we were trying to accomplish. I just want to make sure the law is carried out by everyone.”

Council members had lashed out at the Department of Water and Power commission’s president, Rick Caruso, for failing to act on the law after they recently voted for his confirmation to that board. During an unusually contentious hearing, several members exacted promises from Caruso to ask his fellow commissioners to adopt the law.

The commission instead referred the issue to a committee, where council members said they believed it would die.

On the same day that the council voted to assert authority over the DWP commission, Mayor Richard Riordan sent a strongly worded letter to Caruso urging him to adopt the law.

Caruso, a prominent developer, was appointed to the commission by the mayor. He did not return telephone calls Tuesday seeking comment.

DWP General Manager S. David Freeman said the commission voted unanimously to “continue to adhere” to the law and to mandate that department management also comply. Freeman says the department mostly has been adhering to the law even though the commission hadn’t taken a formal position on it.

“This was probably in response to the letter from the mayor who asked them to do this,” Freeman said. “So they did it.”