Readers React: Targeting the DWP ratepayer advocate doesn’t help taxpayers

To the editor: Consumer Watchdog is arguing that Fred Pickel, head of the L.A. Department of Water and Power’s Office of Public Accountability, should be replaced with “a true consumer advocate.” (“L.A. needs its DWP ratepayer advocate to speak up,” editorial, Nov. 17

Consumer advocacy groups are important in helping protect individuals from the malfeasance of public and private corporations, but there is a problem when they target taxpayer-funded agencies. Why? The people who wind up paying are, in fact, the very people whom the group is purporting to protect: taxpayers.

A more valuable undertaking would be an investigation into why so many of the state’s information technology initiatives fail, not just the DWP’s billing system but the implementation of a new payroll system for the Los Angeles Unified School District in 2007, the project to streamline payment of unemployment benefits in 2013 and L.A. Unified’s implementation of a new data tracking system last year.

Each of these projects has cost taxpayers and ratepayers millions to correct. It’s software, and it either works or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, there’s a reason.

Kay Hammer, Venice

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