For those who need it, a real break from DWP
OK, Mr. Gas Bag, Jeannie Schummer of Encino had said in a poison-tipped e-mail. If I think Silver Lake summers are hot enough that I should get a break on my electricity bill, just like the one proposed for the San Fernando Valley, why don’t we trade houses next summer?
“I AM SURE THAT YOU HAVE STOPPED READING THIS MESSAGE, BUT I WILL CONTINUE,” Ms. Schummer wrote, telling me she’s a retiree on a fixed income and can barely make her DWP payments.
The Echo Park native described the Valley in summer as an unlivable desert, built by “greedy developers,” for “all the poor slobs who could not afford Silver Lake, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and so on. So here we are, trapped for life!”
To be fair, Ms. Schummer doesn’t speak for every Valley resident, as far as I know. But regardless, I didn’t quite understand how the DWP’s offer of a break to everyone north of Mulholland Drive would encourage, rather than discourage, energy conservation. And then there was the matter of all the microclimates in Los Angeles.
If we’re handing out breaks because it takes more energy to run a refrigerator in hot weather, shouldn’t residents of Eagle Rock catch a break over residents of Westwood?
Nice guy that I am, I drove to the flats of Encino to take my licking from Ms. Schummer and to see if I could figure out exactly how much she’d save if the rate restructuring proposal is approved by the City Council.
It turns out that Ms. Schummer, who struggles on Social Security and a small pension from 20 years of administrative work at UCLA, isn’t nearly as threatening in person as in her e-mails. She showed me her paintings, told me about her bridge games at a Burbank senior center and said she bakes great pies.
As for her electricity bill, “I don’t turn on the air conditioning until I’m dying,” Ms. Schummer said. She assured me she works very, very hard to conserve energy in a small two-bedroom house that sits in one of the first G.I. Bill tracts built in the 1940s. So why shouldn’t she catch a break, given that her income is fixed but the cost of living and breathing is not?
Well, I couldn’t very well tell Ms. Schummer to stop baking pies. I asked to see her last DWP bill, which came to $410.44 for July and August. But only $135.94 of it was for electricity, based on 1,256 kilowatt hours. That’s about average or a little below for a Valley resident. The rest of the bill was for water and sewer.
That’s a lot of H2O for a lone occupant. Valley residents already get a break on that rate, which makes no sense to me, especially if the water is being poured into a lawn the color of Augusta National. But Ms. Schummer has a tiny yard, with no orange groves as far as I could tell, and can’t understand why her bill says she’s such a water hog.
I can only solve one problem at a time. I promised Ms. Schummer I’d call the DWP and ask about her electricity bill and find out how much she’d save if the rate proposal goes through.
DWP spokesman Joe Ramallo told me, for starters, that the agency is studying the history of regional temperatures and will probably let several neighborhoods in on the same deal the Valley would get. They must have seen my earlier column.
Boyle Heights? You’re in, so long as the rate structure proposal wins City Council approval.
Eagle Rock? Congratulations.
Highland Park and Atwater Village? That wretched summer heat is about to pay off for you.
Ramallo asked me for my ZIP Code.
90039.
I’m in, he said.
Did I mention what a brilliant plan this is?
As proposed, the first 1,000 kilowatt hours a customer uses every two months would be billed at a lower rate in the Valley and all those other lucky neighborhoods. In the rest of the city, only the first 700 kilowatt hours would get the lowest rate.
But here’s the bad news:
For the majority of customers, the savings under the new plan will not buy dinner at Spago. A buck or two a month is all we’re talking about, so you’re looking at a fish taco and a stick of Juicy Fruit.
And it gets worse:
No matter where you live, your DWP bill is likely to go up in the near future, not down. An adjustment for fuel costs will soon add a few bucks a month, and then there’s the possibility of three rate hikes over the next 18 months, adding up to a 9% increase.
As for Ms. Schummer, Gregory Black, DWP’s manager of rates and contracts, analyzed her bills. He said the agency will send someone to test for leaks in the plumbing, because her water use doesn’t make sense.
Regarding her power, if the proposed break had been in effect this year, she would have saved only about $10 over 12 months. To put it another way, her average monthly cost would have been $49.41 instead of $50.29. South of Mulholland, a customer using the same amount of electricity under the new plan would have averaged $50.09 monthly.
We’re talking about a difference of nickels and dimes. So if enacted, the new rates won’t create regional differences worth going to war over.
Ramallo said the thing to remember is that no matter where you live, if you’ve got the lights and everything else cranked up full blast all the time and burn several thousand kilowatt hours each billing period, “you’re going to see significant increases in your bill” under the proposed restructuring. Instead of the current flat rate, the more you use, the higher your rate.
City Council President Eric Garcetti told me rate restructuring might win approval, but what’s more important is for DWP to prove it’s got a broader plan to encourage water and energy conservation. And with a long history of leadership that did little to win public confidence, Garcetti said, the new management needs to prove it’s cleaned house enough to warrant the rate increases it wants.
Ms. Schummer took it well when I called to say her savings would be minimal under the proposed deal and that any gains would be erased next year when increased DWP fuel costs are passed on to customers.
On the upside, I told her Ramallo pointed out that Edison customers pay much higher rates. And Black found out that Ms. Schummer’s next bill will cut her a big break. She recently applied for a program available to low-income customers (all you’ve got to do is call 1-800-DIALDWP and ask), and by Black’s math, she’ll save about $16 to $18 monthly on electricity.
Even at that, Ms. Schummer said she still wants to trade houses next summer.
I’m game, but would Encino take in a poor schlub from the wrong side of the hill?
