The Brief

Check Reddit or Nextdoor, and it won’t take you long to find someone complaining about a pricey Los Angeles Department of Water and Power bill.

It seems many Angelenos are getting sticker shock when they open their statement. But what’s happening here? We looked into it.

How to understand your LADWP bill

LADWP is the major utility provider covering all of L.A. It handles delivery of power and water, and also collects sewer and trash charges on behalf of the city. Angelenos get billed usually every other month.

If you’re a homeowner in the city, it will likely charge you for all these utility costs. If you’re in an apartment, you may pay for everything or only part. For example, your landlord could absorb the water and trash charges, so you pay LADWP for power use only.

Every bill is different, but where people usually feel the biggest pinch is in the power charges. So how do you know if something is too high?

• Check the math

You can look at the summary of charges on your billing statement, which breaks down how much of each service you used and how much you’re getting charged for it.

For power, it’s per kilowatt hour.

“The cents per kilowatt hour has gone up little by little,” said Ann Santilli, LADWP’s chief financial officer. “I think it’s right now it’s about 23 cents on average.”

She said that includes a 1 cent increase they’re anticipating for July.

“If you look at your usage and multiply it by that 23 cents, that should be close to what your bill is,” Santilli added.

Once you’ve run the math, if your calculations don’t match your bill, you can ask for LADWP to check to see if there’s a mistake.

• Check your usage

If you don’t know how much you should be using, you may want to chat with your neighbors. Sometimes just talking with people who have a similar home size can be a quick way to find out if charges are normal. But keep in mind that lifestyle differences like working from home all day could lead to big variances.

If you feel your energy use is too high, there may be something else going on. It may be worth getting a professional to do a home energy assessment. They’ll look for air leaks, inefficient appliances and more. You can also DIY the assessment, but it may not be as thorough.

LADWP also has energy efficiency staff that can help you look at how your appliances are affecting your bill, Santilli said.

You can learn more about how the rates work at LADWP’s website.

• Check if there’s been a recent rate increase

LADWP approved a budget in July 2023 that included an energy rate increase to cover things like infrastructure maintenance (this is already in effect). Santilli explained what it meant by using a common residential customer’s use, which is about 300-kilowatt hours of energy a month.

“We did see a bill go from approximately $59 to $65,” Santilli said. “Since that time, that $65 bill has come down a little bit, and that’s just because some of the projects that we were hoping to get completed, they didn’t happen.”

Some of those charges were assuming that LADWP would have additional people on staff to get certain work done, or planning ahead for things like higher fuel costs.

This year, on the power side, they’re expecting that increase after June. Santilli said the system average rate will go up about 1 cent per kilowatt hour. So, on a 300-kilowatt-hour bill, it would be about a $3 a month increase.

On the water side, the rate is going up on July 1. Santilli said the water bill right now for a customer who uses 10 billing units per month is about $95. That bill is going to go up by about $12.

Ways to keep your LADWP bill in check

If you get a high bill, you do have some options, like a payment arrangement. But it’s a smarter idea to try and plan ahead. LADWP has a Level Pay Plan that averages out your bill over the year, so you pay less during high-usage times, and a little bit more during low-usage times.

You can check if you’re eligible for the EZ-SAVE program, which is their low-income discount program. Santilli said you can save about $20 if you’re billed bimonthly. You don’t need to show proof of income to enroll, but LADWP may inquire about your eligibility later.

“There’s a lot of people out there who qualify for these programs, but have not signed up for them,” said Jenn Engstrom, state director for the California Public Interest Research Group, which speaks out for consumers across the state. “So that’s just the first thing is if you qualify for one of these programs, you should definitely look into it and take advantage of that.”

LADWP’s EZ-SAVE and Lifeline customers don’t get their utilities cut off for nonpayment, a motion that the board adopted in 2022. The shutoff restriction also applies to all LADWP customers during extreme weather events.

State and federal help is available for your bill too, such as the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

Concern about utility increases

Expensive utility bills in general have been an issue for a long time.

Engstrom said our utility bills are some of the highest in the country, but that it comes from expensive delivery rates, not necessarily the electricity cost itself.

“We’ve had people just email us as a consumer group asking, you know, why this is happening, what they can do about it,” Engstrom said. “We need to look under the hood and figure out exactly what's going on here.”

She sees reasonable causes for expensive bills, like maintenance costs for long-distance power lines and wildfire liability. But she believes there are also less reasonable things happening, like a drive for profits. LADWP’s new general manager and her $750,000 salary doesn’t help optics, either.

Showing up to public meetings to speak can help, she said, even if it’s not immediate. LADWP meets twice a month.

“I think it’s worth being loud, making your voice heard, whether or not they’re specifically listening to you,” Engstrom said. “If it's more helping to add to that overall pressure, I think it’s worth it for sure.”

Richard Marx knows how to write a pop hit.

His first seven singles all reached the top five of the Billboard Hot 100, with hits like "Satisfied" and "Right Here Waiting." His writing credits include Luther Vandross' "Dance With My Father."

But his latest album is showcasing a different side of him.

After Hours blends Great American Songbook standards with original songs that Marx wrote in that classic style. There's also a five-song EP, After Hours: Live From the Grammy Museum, which came from his August performance there.

Marx will bring the album to the Yaamava’ Theater at Yaamava’ Resort & Casino in Highland on Sunday, Nov. 1.

From backup singer to hitmaker

Marx's journey started when he arrived in Los Angeles at 18.

"The first door opened for me kind of immediately," Marx said in an interview with LAist Morning Edition Host Austin Cross. "The first job I had right out of the gate was singing background vocals for Lionel Richie on his first solo album."

That connection allowed Marx to meet Kenny Rogers, with whom he wrote the No. 1 country song "Crazy." But it would still take years before Marx would find his own success as an artist.

"I remember when I started having success as a songwriter and singing on all these other people's hit records," Marx said. "I really thought that would be the fuel, but every record company rejected me for several years. I got rejected time and time again on songs that became massive hits. So, you have to just believe in yourself and wait for that right opportunity to come around."

Writing like it's 1948

Marx's new album is a real departure from the music that made him a star. Initially, he didn't think he was ready to record these types of songs.

"It was a delusion on my part that I wasn't old enough," Marx said. "I thought, 'I'm not old enough to sing those old standards.' Then it dawned on me that I'm 63 years old."

Marx decided not to just record American classics. He also wrote original music in that same style.

"When I realized that I could create something special in writing half the album, it all started to make sense to me," Marx said. "And I have to say that the writing of this album was the most challenging and enjoyable songwriting I think I've ever done."

The first song Marx wrote for the album was called "All I Ever Needed," which features a trumpet solo by Chris Botti.

"I pretended that I was a young, struggling songwriter in 1948, trying to get Sinatra to cut one of my songs," Marx said. "I took a long walk, and I thought whatever comes into my mind, I'm gonna go with it. An hour later, when I came back home, that whole song was written."

For another song called "Magic Hour," Marx got an assist from his wife, Daisy Fuentes.

"It's my favorite song on the album," Marx said. "The lyrics plagued me for a while. So [Fuentes] and I sat down and had a martini, and she just kept talking and telling me this story, and I turned it into lyrics."

Another highlight on After Hours is Marx's duet with Rod Stewart on the song "Young at Heart."

"Rod was just such a hero my whole life," Marx said. "We just kind of accidentally became great friends over the last four years. And in that process, it was Rod who suggested that we do a duet."

Marx is now looking for new goals.

"I'm in the process now of building my new bucket list, and there's really nothing on it so far," Marx said. "I wanna keep making music that makes me feel the way this album made me feel."

See him live

Tickets for Marx's upcoming show at the Yaamava’ Theater at Yaamava’ Resort & Casino in Highland on Sunday, Nov. 1, are available through AXS.

Actor Walter Koenig, who played Ensign Pavel Chekov, the youthful Russian navigator on the “ Star Trek ” television series and several movies, has died. He was 90.

Koenig died Monday at his home in the North Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, talent agent Zachery McGinnis said in a statement.

In “Star Trek,” Ensign Chekov was the sole Communist-bloc member of the spaceship Enterprise bridge staff. His friendly, supportive presence showed how the rival nations (in the far-off future in which the show was set) were capable of working together.

Speaking heavily Russian-accented English, Chekov embodied stereotypical Russian personality traits, including fierce pride, love of poetry and blind loyalty.

“Star Trek” ran on NBC from 1966 to 1969 and has had an almost unprecedented afterlife as fans, or Trekkies, kept interest in the show alive.

“My heart is heavy,” Koenig's castmate, George Takei, said in a post on the social platform X. “Walter was more than Chekov. He was a writer, a teacher, a thoughtful man, and a loyal friend.”

“Walter’s legacy extends far beyond the screen. Through countless convention appearances and interactions with fans, he shared his kindness, wit, and appreciation with everyone fortunate enough to meet him. He understood what Star Trek meant to people and embraced the community that grew around it,” McGinnis said. “Thank you, Walter, for the memories, the inspiration, and for boldly going where few have gone before.”

McGinnis said Koenig died surrounded by his daughter and niece.

Koenig played Chekov in seven “Star Trek” movies starting in 1979, as well as innumerable other spinoffs, including writing a “Star Trek” book, “Chekov's Enterprise,” in 1980. The TV show has also inspired two spinoff TV series with new casts, and conventions that draw thousands of fans.

He returned to the science fiction genre with occasional appearances in the syndicated 1990s TV series “Babylon 5.”

For nearly a decade, California’s Yes In My Backyard activists and other pro-development advocates have wanted to overhaul California’s signature environmental law to clear the way for more housing construction.

Now Proposition 45 is on the ballot. Supporters say it would, among other things, overhaul that law, known as the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, to clear the way for — you guessed it — more housing construction.

So why are YIMBYs divided?

Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat and one of the movement's most stalwart champions in the Legislature, is for it. So is the bulk of the building industry, including many major for- and non-profit developers.

Bay Area pro-housing advocates Eastbay for Everyone and the Greenbelt Alliance, two typical allies of Wicks, are emphatically against it.

In the uncommitted middle lies the lion’s share of California YIMBYism: Abundant Housing Los Angeles, SPUR, and both California YIMBY and YIMBY Action — the movement’s two flagship advocacy organizations — have all taken neutral positions.

“It’s been a weird campaign so far,” said Ali Sapirman, advocacy manager at the Housing Action Coalition, an urban building industry group that supports the measure. “The housing community has been a little bit fractured.”

Those fissures aren't over whether more homes should be built across California. Instead, it mostly boils down to a question of where.

“The central question here is how you feel about sprawl,” Max Dubler of California YIMBY wrote in the group’s non-endorsement statement, referring to low-density housing development at the edge of metro areas. Though some exurban growth “will necessarily be part of solving our housing shortage,” he expressed concern about making it easier to build “car-dependent sprawl housing and the freeways and water infrastructure necessary to serve that sprawl.”

To sprawl or not to sprawl

For nearly a decade, the Legislature has been on a tear, passing “streamlining” bills aimed at speeding up the regulatory approval of new construction. Almost all of those laws have only applied to projects in places where homes and other infrastructure already exist.

Prioritizing so-called infill development helped wrangle together a coalition of developers and construction labor unions, but also a diverse swath of Democratic-leaning advocates whose interest in seeing more apartments and condos goes beyond the cause of affordability alone. That includes climate activists who want to see less commuter car traffic; transit, bicycle and pedestrian advocates who want more riders and walkers and urbanists who want Los Angeles to more closely resemble Barcelona.

In breaking from that urban focus, Prop. 45 is driving a wedge inside that coalition.

If passed, the measure would speed up the review process required under CEQA (pronounced “see-kwah”) for all types of housing projects. That includes transit-adjacent downtown condo towers, but also freshly paved subdivisions at the metropolitan fringe.

The measure is “a doubling down on essentially 75 years of land-use patterns that we know haven't worked,” said Jordan Grimes, legislative director with Greenbelt Alliance, which opposes the measure. “It's a return to the sprawl era.”

Not everyone in the movement necessarily sees that as a bad thing. Among those who want California to build its way out of its current housing shortage, opinions differ over whether more environmentally-friendly infill development alone is up to the task.

“I'm an ‘all of the above’ person when it comes to housing,” said Wicks, explaining her support of the measure. “I think we need housing of all different types, shapes, and sizes.”

An earlier version of this rift first emerged earlier this decade when a handful of Bay Area tech investors announced plans to build a brand new city on Solano County farmland in 2023 under the banner of California Forever. Some YIMBY commentators applauded the plan as a welcome injection of much-needed supply. Others decried it as sprawl dressed in urbanist clothing.

With Prop. 45, that regional debate is now playing out at a statewide scale.

Housing front and center 

Prop. 45 is about much more than housing policy.

CEQA requires public agencies to review the possible environmental consequences of the decisions they make, including the permitting of private projects. For decades industry groups, developers and, more recently, housing supply boosters have said the law makes it too easy for project opponents to jam up worthwhile projects by repeatedly demanding additional analysis.

“The clock is endless and the number of people and entities who can challenge you are also endless,” said Linda Mandolini of Eden Housing, an affordable housing developer.

Prop. 45 would not exempt any projects from environmental review outright. But for projects deemed "essential," it would narrow the focus of these reviews and require them to wrap up within 365 business days. Any resulting litigation would also face a shot clock; Judges would have 270 business days to resolve them. Such lawsuits would also be made harder to sustain in court. Aside from housing, essential projects include roads, hospitals, schools, clean energy projects, water and broadband infrastructure.

But housing has loomed large in the electoral debate. The Yes on 45 campaign has touted the support of affordable housing developers and housing advocates, while pointing to housing affordability concerns as the initial impetus for the measure.

It’s easy to see why. Environmental challenges to often innocuous-seeming housing projects have regularly generated headlines for years, helping to cement the idea among lawmakers and many voters that CEQA is a major cause of the state’s housing woes.

Environmental justice groups and their allies have spent years fighting against that argument in the Legislature. Though Prop. 45 does not exempt “essential” projects from environmental review outright — it just shortens and hems in the process — these groups have now lined up to oppose it for much the same reason: They reject the premise that CEQA needs fixing.

But for opponents like Grimes, who supported many recent streamlining bills, the argument that the law is holding up desperately needed residential construction is a year out of date. Last year, the governor signed Assembly Bill 130, a Wicks-authored measure that exempted most infill housing from the CEQA.

Since becoming law in July 2025, developers have used it to entitle 17,913 units of housing, according to the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation, a state agency.

“When you look at what’s left to do on urban housing, there are absolutely still barriers,” said Grimes, whose organization applauded last year’s exemption. “CEQA just isn't one of them.”

The task of the No on 45 campaign, he said, is to convince enough voters that “we’ve actually solved this problem.”

Are we done here?

Many developers and affordable housing advocates, even those working in urban areas, dispute that CEQA is no longer a major obstacle.

Last year’s exemption does not exempt projects larger than 20 acres, which means supersized urban redevelopment projects are still subject to the old process.

Prop. 45 also applies shot clocks to other permits issued later in the development process and which regularly slow a project more than environmental review.

And while state laws like last year’s infill carveout may grant certain developers the right to ignore CEQA, there is nothing to stop a deep-pocketed opponent from suing anyway. Putting time limits on those lawsuits could be the difference between a project succeeding and being delayed to death, said Mandolini.

She points to the planned 130-unit affordable housing project that Eden Housing has been trying to and failing to build in the Bay Area suburb of Livermore since 2018 as an example. In 2021, a nonprofit funded by a handful of well-heeled Livermore residents sued the city, arguing that it hadn’t done enough environmental analysis on a housing development that would be built on a former grocery store parking lot behind a row of downtown restaurants. A lower court ruled that the group’s CEQA arguments were “almost utterly without merit.” An appellate court agreed. The state Supreme Court allowed that ruling to stand.

But by then two years had passed.

“Every year you lose in litigation is real money for real projects and another year that 130 families don't get to live in that housing,” said Mandolini. “It’s a great way to kill a project.”

Even an infill project.

But among some pro-housing supporters of the proposition, the infill versus sprawl debate isn’t much of a debate at all.

“We’re not an urbanist organization,” said Mahdi Manji with the Inner City Law Center, a legal aid provider and housing advocacy group in Los Angeles’ Skid Row. The group supports Prop. 45 and doesn’t mind the concept of more housing far from the city’s core. “To the extent it results in housing that is a little more affordable in Lancaster and Palmdale, a lot of our clients live out in Lancaster and Palmdale.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.