Fred Pickel’s reappointment as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s watchdog and ratepayer advocate will be considered by a City Council Committee Tuesday, along with a second proposal that he should first be subjected to a formal job review, as one councilman critical of his tenure has urged.
The longtime energy industry consultant was appointed in February 2012 to be the official watchdog of the LADWP. Since his five-year term expired, he has been working on a month-to-month contract.
Pickel was recommended for reappointment by the Citizens Committee for the Selection of the Executive Director of the Office of Public Accountability, which is made up of appointees of the mayor and some City Council members. But following the recommendation, Councilman Paul Koretz introduced a motion calling for Pickel to be subjected to a formal job review covering his tenure, which he said has been poor and underwhelming.
The Energy, Climate Change and Environmental Justice Committee is scheduled to discuss both the Citizens Committee’s recommendation and Koretz’s motion at a 1 p.m. meeting.
Pickel said in an email that he would prefer to wait to comment until after the confirmation process is complete.
Koretz wrote in his motion that Pickel was recommended for reappointment “without any review of his job performance in his first 6 1/2 years on the job, and the chair of the Citizens Advisory Committee which nominated him has stated that no such review has taken place nor ever would.” Koretz’s motion also says that “to date, the Office of Public Accountability has not improved DWP transparency or adequately addressed common consumer complaints.”
Tony Wilkinson, chair of the search committee, told Koretz at a meeting last month of the Personnel and Animal Welfare Committee that the Citizens Committee did not do any job performance review of Pickel because “the employment job review did not appear to be authorized by the charter and the ordinance as it currently stands.”
He added, “We were going forward with this, we were not looking backward. However, we did evaluate this candidate’s experience and writing, just like we did of those of other candidates.”