LA Podcast - Departure of Water and Power

Alissa, Mike, and Sammy discuss the resignation of Janisse Quiñones as head of LADWP and what this will mean for LA’s clean energy goals. Then, takeaways from the first LA mayoral debate and how climate is factoring into the governor’s race. And a new baseball season means more complaints about how the Dodgers can be doing more for the community.

Listen below, on Apple Podcasts, via Spotify, or almost anywhere you get your podcasts.

SHOW NOTES

LADWP CEO Janisse Quiñones stepped down a few weeks ago to return to Puerto Rico and work on modernizing the grid

Sammy’s excellent story about Quiñones leaving describes the role as “one of the most important roles in global climate policy” — and she helped push forward that vision

LA Mayor Karen Bass named David Hanson as interim director. He’s worked at DWP two decades, starting as an electrical mechanic

The LADWP board has almost completely turned over under Bass, and, in addition, four out of five of her Fire Commissioners have also stepped down

If you want to catch up on LA’s clean energy goals and all the various colors of hydrogen, listen to the last episode where Sammy joined us

The LA Local: “Bass orders 60,000 streetlights to get solar upgrade in 2-year plan”

Meanwhile, LA’s City Council advanced a plan to raise streetlight assessments, with ballots going out April 17

And Councilmembers Katy Yaroslavsky and Eunisses Hernandez announced their own “solar surge”

A general reminder to read India Mandelkern’s excellent book: Electric Moons: A Social History of Street Lighting in Los Angeles

Watch the first LA mayoral debate sponsored by Streets for All and Housing Action Coalition. It was unusually friendly turf for a candidate — one of the moderators used to work for Nithya and the other helped recruit Nithya to run for mayor

So far, only Rae Huang has a climate platform

Nithya Raman is talking about parks as a neighborhood-cooling solution — and look at those Griffith Park bike lanes!

Raman was also removed from the AQMD board by Bass just before she declared for mayor, and just after this bizarre vote where an AI-powered campaign bot sent 20,000 emails and helped defeat a motion to phase out gas-powered appliances (Raman voted yes, but it failed)

Watch Sammy’s climate forum with governor candidates and read his take on the governor’s race

Politico: “Tom Steyer’s climate pivot signals new playbook for Dems”

LA Material: “Why USC Really Spiked the Gubernatorial Debate”

Alissa’s quoted in Bill Shaikin’s LA Times story on walking to Dodger Stadium

As election season heats up, be sure to listen to subscribe to Mike’s podcast What’s Next, Los Angeles to hear interviews with candidates all over LA County

And support What’s Next, Los Angeles and LA Podcast by becoming a paid subscriber at thinkforward.la. We’re already planning our next paid subscribers-only event 

This week’s episode was produced by Sophie Bridges

Alissa Walker writes the newsletter Torched

Mike Bonin is the executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at CalState LA

Sammy Roth writes the newsletter Climate-Colored Goggles

The reporting and analysis you hear in the show is put together by our rotating cast of producers and co-hosts every week. All opinions expressed on the show are solely those of co-hosts and may not represent the views of LA Forward