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Water King and Water Boy huddle right after testy exchange with me over water bills
I got a letter this weekend from David Nahai that shows the general manager of the Department of Water and Power and I have a great deal in common.
No, I don’t live in a 6,012-square foot Benedict Canyon mansion and when people call me names, they usually don’t invoke royalty the way I call him the Water King.
But for nearly a month, I’ve been trying to get him to turn over his water and electric bills to me. It’s his duty to tell us how he’s conserving as he demands that Angelenos make sacrifices.
Turns out, Water King possesses a fertile imagination just like me. He tells me that he’s been planning to release the records all along. He just doesn’t want to give them to me. I can believe that last statement. And all this time I thought his best-selling wife Gina was the family’s fiction writer.
“In fact, I plan to disclose such information in the near future, for reasons unrelated to your inquiry,” he deadpanned, in his letter of June 13. “I ordinarily would have no objection to releasing my water and power usage information. However, in light of how you have conducted yourself, your inappropriate behavior with my family and your admitted harassment of me earlier this week, I see no point in providing this information to you in particular.”
He takes one final jab: “I also respectfully request that you refrain from contacting members of my family in the future.”
Hold on, may I get a word in here before we send the case to the jury?
The saga started politely enough May 15. That’s when I asked then-friendly Nahai about his water bills after a press conference in which he announced a massive water conservation and recycling plan. I’ll say more about me and my behavior, all of which bore the daylights out of me, later in the post. But now, let’s delve into the legal points we haven’t talked about before.
In his letter rejecting my request, Water King cites California Government Code Section 6254.16, which deals with the confidentiality of utility bills. But it also lists exceptions. Subsection E describes certain elected and appointed officials whose utility bills should become public. No way Water King, as the key leader dealing with water and electric rates and policies, would not be among this group whose bills should be released to the public.
This little provision has David Nahai written all over it:
(e) Upon determination by the local agency that the utility
customer who is the subject of the request is an elected or appointed
official with authority to determine the utility usage policies of
the local agency, provided that the home address of an appointed
official shall not be disclosed without his or her consent.
Water King falls into this group as both the general manager of the DWP, a position he’s held since October 2007, and as a member of the DWP’s Board of Commissioners, a position he held from September 2005 to shortly before he was named general manager. My request covered a year’s worth of bills, starting in June 2007.
Water King’s a lawyer and earned his degree from one of the best schools in the United States – UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law. Of course, he knows this subsection applies to him, and that he must release his bills to the public. But now he wants to do it on his own terms, and not give them to some obnoxious columnist who calls himself L.A. Sniper. He’s probably imposed strict water rationing on his family and will wait for a billing cycle that shows he’s cut water use in half. Maybe he’s boarded-up six of his seven bathrooms, drained the swimming pool and ordered his wife and three children to shower at the gym.
Unfortunately for Water King, the law does not grant him the discretion to release the requested public information on his own terms. Clearly, the ball is now in my court. I’ve scheduled meetings here at L.A. Sniper headquarters to plot my next move.
In nearly three decades in journalism, I’ve filed dozens of requests for public information, and most of time the responses are not signed by head of the agency. Water King took personal interest in my request and I applaud him for it.
He still seems to be fried that I stopped by his house to ask his wife for the bills. I’ve listened several times to a recording of our conversation at the May 15 press conference. When I asked him how much his water bill was, he said: “You’d have to ask my wife.” Many of my own friends say I shouldn’t have taken his words so literally and gone to his house. I would have gone to check it out even without his implied invitation. Go ahead, convict me of treading into the personal domain of one of most powerful public officials in L.A., who dictates policies that affect millions of people. The public interest served by my inquiry far outweighs the ripple of invading his family’s privacy for five minutes.
There’s plenty of room here for debate, but you should know that I conducted myself as the model of diplomacy in my low-key approach with Gina Nahai and son who came to the door. I apologized several times for imposing on them and asked only once to see the bills. I spoke in normal tones.
In contrast, I grew more persistent by the nanosecond in my questioning of the Water King at a June 9 press conference in Silver Lake. He invited the harsh questioning. I flat-out told him that the reason it might seem that I’m harassing him is because he violated the California Public Records Act by not responding to my request within 10 days. (He held his press conference on Day 15 and finally responded to my request on Day 19, nine days too late.)
The Water King should not only be big enough to take the badgering, but he should realize he needs to hand over the information. He made a mistake by rejecting my request. His judgment must have been clouded by his tense working conditions. It can’t be easy for a man as sharp as David Nahai to be so subservient to the political whims of the mayor and of the DWP’s union boss, who calls many of the shots at the powerful utility.
But maybe he’s on the right track. Right below David Nahai’s signature is the DWP motto: “Water and Power conservation…a way of life.”
Too bad Water King didn’t prove it when I gave him a chance. Maybe I should have asked a simpler question, like does he drink tap or bottled water at home?
Most water meters are in the buried boxes on the public easement right by the street. If you want to know Nahai’s water usage, go by there every month, pull up the cover, and take a reading. If you think usage is too high, you can buy a water key at a home improvement store for about seven dollars and cut off the flow. Then report a busted pipe to the water department because the abnormal reading would indicate a major leak, and claim that you were merely trying to help when you cut off the water. Early in the morning when people are taking showers is the best time to do this.
Hey Alan, why not advocate a flat per-person water rationing this summer. Every resident in Los Angeles, no matter who they are or how much property they own, will only be allowed to use a specific amount of water. If you have lush vegetation on your property, tough shit, you’ll just have to convert it all to drought tolerant native plants. I’d imagine we’d save a lot more water if than we’re saving now, than by forcing everyone to water their lawns in the evenings, and giving petty fines for keeping your sprinklers on during the day. It seems to me we should all make an equal sacrifice.
“the public interest served by my inquiry far outweighs the ripple of invading his family’s privacy for five minutes.”
There’s the crux: reporters think they’re so all=important, so much the self-defined arbiters of “the public interest,” that they can do whatever they want, invade privacy and peace of mind and security of family members as well as the target himself. As I said before, if Alan feels literally entitled to do this, why not every single journalist and reporter and blogger — since he doesn’t have any special dispensation to do so. Why not a horde descending at the family’s doorstep, each and every one demanding the bill.
And no, this isn’t just “a ripple” of inconvenience, it’s a breach of the implicit understanding between journalists and their targets. Sure, Woodward and Bernstein showed up at people’s homes unannounced, sometimes got an interview with someone too polite to send them packing — but we live in more wary times, where our privacy is invaded by journalists via internet, at our workplace and every possible way. There are serious security issues involved in opening the door to just any potential nutcase or magazine peddler passing by. The willingness of subjects to cooperate hinges on an implied quid-pro-quo of boundaries.
I agree with WBC. Maybe Nahai’s wife should hose down Alan the next time he shows up on their porch. Make some good use of that water.
WBC, I do see your point regarding privacy right, and if David Nahai was a private citizen, I’d complete agree with you. but he’s not, he’s a public official, and as such has to endure a certain amount of public scrutiny. Alan is only concerned the water bill of the public official who’s in charge of supplying the city with water.
Am I the only person who’s offended that a public official lives on a 6000 square feet of land? And isn’t the DWP one of the most corrupt city departments in Southern California?
First, the size of Nahai’s house has nothing to do with the privacy issues. He lived in that house when he was appointed a year ago — should the size of one’s home be considered as a pre=condition of appointment? He’d been making a lot of money and took a financial hit to take this job.
I stand firm that every self-style reporter or blogger does NOT have the right to invade an official’s home and privacy. Take your issues to his/her place of business. Even paparazzi know better than to ring doorbells using the pretext of “the public’s right to know” — it’s bad enough, they obstruct the streets, but if they invade private property they can be arrested for trespassing. The excuse that “public figures,” whether celebrities or appointed or elected officials, lose the protection any private citizen has, to determine who does and doesn’t invade their private property, with the excuse of “the public’s right to know,” is patently absurd — consider the extremes to which this can go. I suggest Alan let this one go — it doesn’t seem a good idea to test the issue of property rights and the right to protect one’s family from intruders, vs. “right to know.”
I just had a vision of Woody standing on his front porch with a shot gun in one hand, and a bottle of Rebel Yell Whiskey in the other, telling a Jehovah’s Witness it get off his property.
A good environmental tip is to recycle the water after waterboarding intruders and terrorists.
Public officials grow arrogant because not enough reporters ask the real, hard questions, like Alan has here.
If the Water King was smart, he’d invite Alan over for a swim, but his instinct is to turtle up and get all pissy. If he wants a private life, get a private-sector job.
If Obama doesn’t want people criticizing his wife, he should get a private-sector job. See how this works?
I’m all for Alan bringing light to this issue, but I would respect family boundaries.
Alan, don’t go to Nahai’s house for a swim. We don’t need any “accidental” drownings.
#9 creeps me out. The sort of bitter person who believes any appointed or elected official is a “public servant” in the most literal sense, and enjoys the vicarious thrill of watching someone much wealthier and more powerful than them taunted and wants to force them to grovel for their approval — the dark side of democracy. Sharks circling in a tank, certainly not what you’d want to invite for a swim in your private pool.
Invariably, these people call themselves liberals and cloak their thirst for blood in the mantle of “the people’s right to know,” especially posing as almighty “journalists” who have a self-appointed right to violate all bounds of privacy and decency in the interests of their “higher calling.”
Guess what: as anyone with a keyboard and a blog can claim equal status with a vetted writer for a major paper, the special status has disappeared, as well, unless you’re Barbara Walters or Diane Sawyer with a film crew and an appointment.
I get personally irate at politicians or public officials who tell the public to do one thing, but do something entirely different in their personal lives.
Congratulations to Allen for chasing and his wife down.
In the past year, Gore’s home burned through 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power 232 average American households for a month.
My home used only 10,225 kWh for a year. — Gore’s house used 20 times what my home for the year.
Pokey, so try showing up at Gore’s house and harassing HIS wife Tipper. First, you won’t get near the massive gates, let alone the door — if you snuck past, you’d be arrested and there would be a major check on you to see if you were in the FBI/CIA/ Homeland Security database as a known terrorist or threat.
GOOD LUCK, Pokey, pls. report back on your “chasing down” the Gores. Alan’s just lucky the Nahais haven’t experienced this previously and didn’t have their defenses up. Next time. — Guess jealousy of the rich and powerful gives people the thrill of the chase, cloaked under “the public’s right to know.”
I like Cobb salad.
WBC, you are wrong.
First off: Any person has the right to knock on the door of any other person.
Second: Water King could have simply forked over the paperwork, thus preventing Alan to be required to pursue the matter further.
Alan was doing his job. For example if the wife of the water king would have called the cops on Alan, what would she tell them? that a man knocked on her door and asked her a question, and then went away? The cops would laugh.
Third, when you are a public official you are subjected to public scrutiny. That means you have to disclose certain things that would be private for any other citizen. If a person objects to being subjected to this, then they can choose to work elsewhere.
And woody, no that is stupid logic. If Obama took a private sector job, every American still has the right to criticize his wife. As we have the right to criticize anyone. Although if Obama was the general manager of a Starbucks instead of a presidential candidate its obvious that nobody would be interested enough to criticize her.
WBC pointed out that this man got the job about a year ago, and took a pay cut to take this job. He also took a cut in the level of privacy he ought to expect.
Why not just disclose the documents when the reporter asked?
Why not work in the private sector if he wishes he records to stay private?
Now with all of this said, i don’t believe that Alan truly thought that the wife would have the records he wanted. Maybe she would have a few of their water bills laying around, maybe not. I BELIEVE that he went there to send a message to the Water King. Sort of an F-U for not giving me the records i need to do my job. Like, i think Alan thought that when the Water King got home, he would be so angry that he would just hurry up and give the reporter what he wants to get him off his back. Too bad it didn’t work out that way.
You ought to ask for all of the Long Beach Water Department’s executive management’s personal water bills…I bet they’re low…and that you would get them without any fuss. That would be interesting.
Are you done your Cobb salad? Can I have it?
Thank you for exposing another “do as I say” hypocrite. Nahai is a total fraud. He wants to exploit the rest of California for water and energy, when he can do the right thing by supporting safe, eco-friendly localized generation. All of these phonys need to be exposed for who they are. They want us to go without, but are unwilling to walk the same walk.
If LADWP had a genuine environmentalist for a G.M., it would already be surpassing the 20% renewables goal it has set for itself, through real rooftop solar incentives and not the half-hearted lip service designed only to make him look better than he is. Welcome back Mr. Mulholland!