Los Angeles mayoral candidate Austin Beutner took aim at the rising cost of basic city services Thursday, saying Mayor Karen Bass and her administration have contributed to an affordability crisis that is \u201ccrushing families.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beutner, appearing outside Van Nuys City Hall, pointed to the City Council\u2019s recent decision to increase trash collection fees<\/a> to nearly $56 per month, up from $36.32 for single-family homes and duplexes and $24.33 for three- and four-unit apartment buildings.<\/p>\n Since Bass took office in December 2022, the city also hiked sewer service fees, which are on track to double over a four-year period<\/a>. In addition, Beutner said, the Department of Water and Power pushed up the cost of water and electrical service by 52% and 19%, respectively.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m talking about the cost-of-living crisis that\u2019s crushing families,\u201d he said. \u201cL.A. is a very, very special place, but every day it\u2019s becoming less affordable.\u201d<\/p>\n Beutner, speaking before a group of reporters, would not commit to rolling back any of those increases. Instead, he urged Bass to call a special session of the City Council to explain the decisions that led to the increases.<\/p>\n \u201cTell me the cost of those choices, and then we can have an informed conversation as to whether it was a good choice or a bad choice \u2014 or whether I\u2019d make the same choice,\u201d said Beutner, who has worked as superintendent of L.A. schools and as a high-level deputy mayor.<\/p>\n When the City Council took up the sewer rates last year, sanitation officials argued the increase was needed to cover rising construction and labor costs \u2014 and ramp up the repair and replacement of aging pipes.<\/p>\n This year sanitation officials also pushed for a package of trash fee hikes, saying the rates had not increased in 17 years. They argued that the city\u2019s budget has been subsidizing the cost of residential trash pickup for customers in single-family homes and small apartments.<\/p>\n Doug Herman, spokesperson for the Bass reelection campaign, defended the trash and sewer service fee increases, saying both were long overdue. Bass took action, he said, because previous city leaders failed to make the hard choices necessary to balance the budget and fix deteriorating sewer pipes.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody was willing to face the music and request the rate hikes to do that necessary work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n DWP spokesperson Michelle Figueroa acknowledged that electrical rates have gone up. However, she said in an email, the DWP\u2019s residential rates remain lower than other utilities, including Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.<\/p>\n By focusing on cost-of-living concerns, Beutner\u2019s campaign has been emphasizing an issue that is at the forefront of next week\u2019s election for New York City mayor. In that contest, State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani has promised to lower consumer costs<\/a>, in part by freezing the rent for rent-stabilized apartments and making rides on city buses free.<\/p>\n Since announcing his candidacy<\/a> this month, Beutner has offered few cost-of-living policy prescriptions, other than to say he supports \u201cin concept\u201d Senate Bill 79, a newly signed state law that allows taller, denser buildings to be approved near public transit stops. Instead, he mostly has derided a wide array of increases, including a recent hike in parking rates<\/a>.<\/p>\n Beutner contends that the city\u2019s various increases will add more than $1,200 per year to the average household customer\u2019s bill from the Department of Water and Power, which includes the cost not just of utilities but also trash removal and sewer service.<\/p>\n Herman pushed back on that estimate, saying it relies on \u201cflawed assumptions,\u201d incorporating fees that apply to only a portion of ratepayers.<\/p>\n In a new campaign video, Beutner warned that city leaders also are laying plans to more than double what property owners pay in street lighting assessments. He also accused the DWP of relying increasingly on \u201cadjustment factors\u201d to increase the amount customers pay for water and electricity, instead of hiking the base rate.<\/p>\n The DWP needs to be more transparent about those increases and why they were needed, Beutner said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles mayoral candidate Austin Beutner took aim at the rising cost of basic city services Thursday, saying…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":345365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[151115,6297,1582,276,2451,5310,169801,13332,3040,169802,35076,246,30570,115983,2961,224,5337,169803,169800,527],"class_list":{"0":"post-345364","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-austin-beutner","9":"tag-bass","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-city","13":"tag-city-council","14":"tag-city-fee","15":"tag-cost","16":"tag-department","17":"tag-doug-herman","18":"tag-dwp","19":"tag-family","20":"tag-increase","21":"tag-l-a-mayor-karen-bass","22":"tag-la","23":"tag-los-angeles","24":"tag-losangeles","25":"tag-sanitation-official","26":"tag-sewer-service-fee","27":"tag-water"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115468374270770597","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}