As Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa prepares to pick the next general manager of the Department of Water and Power — his sixth in three and a half years — the massive utility is quietly backing away from his ambitious goal of generating 40% of its power from renewable sources by 2020.
That shift, initiated under the leadership of First Deputy Mayor Austin Beutner, is only the latest at an agency marked by upheaval as it pursues the mayor's lofty environmental agenda.
Since Villaraigosa took office in 2005, the nation's largest municipally owned utility has been in a state of churn. Multimillion-dollar initiatives have been announced, then abandoned. Executives have been installed, then jettisoned.
Leadership turnover — five general managers over the last three and a half years and four DWP board presidents since 2006 — has caused the utility to lurch from one environmental strategy to the next, investing time and ratepayer dollars on projects, only to see them scrapped.
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