Until further notice, it might be wise to carry a life preserver with you at all times in Greater Los Angeles, which had yet another water main eruption early Tuesday.
It's like a geyser park out there, and fittingly, the latest gusher was near an L.A. Department of Water and Power distribution station in South Los Angeles.
Where and when will the next one blow?
I'm visualizing a news conference at which Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa tries to explain the DWP's latest troubles or persuade us he can avert a city budget disaster, and suddenly he's shooting skyward, riding a gusher.
But even before rotten pipes gave way to raging rivers, I was working on a column about the DWP. I was working on it before the City Council rejected yet another rate hike request, before Villaraigosa buddy Fabian Nunez's PR firm was tapped for a $120,000 annual contract, and yes, even before the news that another Villaraigosa pal swept in and bought a wind farm that the mayor wanted and then tried to sell it to the city at an inflated price.
It began with a seven-page letter from JoAnn Yuster of North Hollywood, who was steaming about how she and her husband were using less water but paying more for it. Her letter was loaded with quotation marks and exclamation points, and the handwriting got worse as she picked up speed.
"P.S.," she wrote. "I am really not a crazy lady. Just angry at what has happened to our city & state!!!"
When I went to visit JoAnn and Richard Yuster, their neighbor Beth Morgan dropped by, and they all took turns complaining about their ever-growing DWP bills.
"My husband said it's like another mortgage payment," said Morgan, whose $927 DWP bill for July and August was the same amount, almost to the penny, as her Social Security check.
Morgan said she called the DWP to complain that it was difficult to understand the bill, as well as the explanation of a two-tier billing system that's in effect because of the drought.
"They said, 'You don't gotta understand it, you just gotta pay the bill,' " said Morgan, whose husband is a TV producer who works intermittently. "They said, 'Honey, nobody understands this.' "
DWP did send an explanation to the Yusters, but language such as, "Your first tier allowance (usage block) will be reduced by 15%," doesn't exactly make things crystal-clear. Imagine thousands of seniors training a magnifying glass on words like those, trying to make sense of what the DWP is telling them now.
