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City controller says LA may not be able to pay bills

By Frank Stoltze

Published April 6, 2010 09:05 AM

Wendy Greuel at the Grove Theatre on April 29, 2004 in Los Angeles, watching Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo speaking to the press.

The L.A. City Council and Board of Water and Power commissioners are meeting separately today to discuss their ongoing dispute over a proposed DWP rate hike.

(Audio: City Controller Wendy Greuel says the loss of the DWP money means she won’t be able to pay L.A.’s bills next month unless the City Council dips into the reserve fund. She spoke with KPCC’s Frank Stoltze.)

DWP General Manager David Freeman says the agency cannot transfer $73 million to the city’s general fund.

Freeman says the City Council’s decision to block a power rate increase means such a transfer could threaten the DWP’s credit rating.

Frank Stoltze

I came to L.A. as a very young reporter on New Year’s Day, 1991. Two months later, four LAPD officers were caught on videotape beating Rodney King. A year later, the night before the riots/rebellion broke out, I was in the Nickerson Gardens housing project in Watts at an extraordinary rally of rival gangs that had brokered a truce.

See stories by Frank Stoltze