DWP official disputes bias accusations
Raman Raj, now the utility's No. 2 executive, said he left in 2001 not because of discrimination cases but because he was seen as being too close to mayoral candidate Villaraigosa.
Seven years ago, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power spent $3.3 million settling employee accusations that the utility had condoned racial discrimination -- and interfered in efforts to investigate those complaints.
The allegations prompted the DWP to hire an outside law firm, which concluded that one high-level official, then-Assistant General Manager Raman Raj, had shielded union employees from disciplinary action and discouraged employee complaints. The firm recommended that he leave for the good of the agency.
Raj was forced out three months later. But with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa recently installing new leadership at the DWP, Raj, 58, returned in December as the utility's No. 2 official, running the department while General Manager H. David Nahai travels to Israel with the mayor.
In an interview with The Times, Raj called the report a "charade," saying it was produced purely to allow his bosses to justify his removal. Raj said he left the DWP in August 2001 not because of the discrimination cases but because a representative of then-Mayor James K. Hahn thought he was too close to Villaraigosa, who had just lost his bid for mayor.
"That somebody would even suggest that I would want to control or condone discrimination, it just makes me very upset," he said. "It's just absolute nonsense."
The confidential report on Raj, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, was commissioned in the final months of the Riordan administration, before the runoff election between Hahn and Villaraigosa.
Produced by the Texas law firm of Kemp Smith, the report concluded that Raj moved the utility's anti-discrimination office from a satellite building -- valued for providing a level of anonymity -- into DWP headquarters to discourage complaints, since anyone who entered would have to do so in public view.
The report also said Raj manipulated severance packages to remove managers who disagreed with him. And it warned that Raj had given "too much influence in management of the organization" to Brian D'Arcy, head of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18 -- which represents DWP workers.
"This cannot be healthy for the organization over the long run," wrote Kemp Smith lawyer Michael McQueen, who interviewed Raj and 24 others.
City Councilwoman Jan Perry, who heads the council's Energy and Environment Committee, voiced concern over the report's assertion that Raj's actions could have compromised confidentiality for employees seeking to report discrimination.
