Wave of businesses' protest surges over DWP's water rates.

Los Angeles business and apartment owners, outraged over water and sewer bills they say are driving them out of business, have joined forces to hire a lobbyist and fight City Hall.

The business people have already caught the ear of Mayor Richard Riordan's office, where a constituent services case worker said a Blue Ribbon Task Force on water and sewer rates will be reconvened within the next few months.

"It (the rates situation) is just ludicrous," said Mayoral aide Poncella Gratton. "I'm personally very confident that they (rates) will go down.

"It's really a financial burden. Something needs to be done -- I think immediately. All I can do is let them (the Department of Water and Power) know how dire it is that they do something soon."

In addition to hearing from business people, Gratton said there have been numerous complaints from homeowners in the San Fernando Valley about their July utility bills.

David Cobb, assistant deputy mayor of city services, said that a task force would be convened in a few months, after the department has a chance to "gather more data" on the rates.

"I understand there have been a number of complaints from people in the valley and we're concerned about that," Cobb said. "But you have to have adequate data before you change the rates."

Carol Knapp, chairwoman of the recently formed Coalition for Fairness in Water/Sewer Rates, said it is water-intensive businesses and owners of apartment buildings that have been hit hardest by rapidly growing sewer service charges.

The Apartment Owners Association Magazine recently published an article by Knapp with a chart showing that Los Angeles charges business owners nearly twice as much for sewer service as do other nearby cities that use L.A.'s sewage treatment plant.

Los Angeles charges owners of apartment buildings with five or more units the commercial rate of $2.05 per hundred cubic feet of water for sewer service. Beverly Hills charges them $1.04, and Glendale charges $1.09. Pasadena and Alhambra charge even less.

Knapp is fighting to bring business sewer charges in L.A. down to the same rate (per hundred cubic feet) that the city charges owners of single-family homes (about 33 percent less, or $1.37).

She says she is writing an initiative petition proposal she hopes will result in a 1994 ballot proposition.

Also drafting an initiative of his own is Steve Garfield, a member of the Environmental and Public Utilities Commission in Redondo Beach.

Garfield has been working for passage of state legislation allowing the Metropolitan Water District to be sold to private operators.

If the bill doesn't pass next year, Garfield said, "I'm going to go the initiative route and will force it down their throat."

Meanwhile, Garfield has been exploring the possibility of selling the DWP to a private entity.

He claimed he has spoken to officials at Rosemead-based SCEcorp who said Southern California Edison would be interested in buying the DWP for about $2 billion, if they were approached by the city or the city went to bid.

SCE officials had no comment.

Garfield said DWP's staff is "bloated" and the utility would be much more efficient if it were operated by Edison.

Knapp also wants any money saved as a result of an upcoming audit of the Wastewater Management fund to be refunded to rate payers, instead of used to hire police officers, as has been proposed by City Councilman Joel Wachs, who called for the audit.

"That issue is one that can be settled later on. If there's waste in the system, you get rid of it," said Wachs' deputy Greg Nelson. "We really shouldn't concern ourselves with what we should do with the money because that's a divisive issue."

Wachs and his staff believe that the sewer system's expense budget could be cut by 5 to 15 percent, saving the city roughly $40 million to $120 million per year.

Knapp, an apartment building owner, has started a fund through the Apartment Owners Association to pay for a lobbyist on this issue at City Hall.

Joining Knapp in her fight recently have been owners of coin-operated laundries, led by businessman Paul Stilzner. He owns the Venice Maytag Laundry, a 48-washer facility at Venice Boulevard and Vermont Avenue.

"My sewer rates are so high that my profit is minimal. I have about $16,000 a month in gross sales, and I might make $1,000 in a good month," said Stilzner. "I don't make the margin that makes sense to stay in business."

Stilzner said his utility bills average $3,000 a month and have not gone down despite the addition of efficient machines that have cut his water use in half.

Apartment owner Rita Williams said she allowed her three buildings, with a total of 44 apartments, to go into foreclosure last June rather than pay her astronomical DWP bill.

Williams said she discovered last March, when her husband was dying of leukemia, that he had been unable to pay his utility bills, which averaged $1,500 per building per month, for some time and owed $150,000 in back taxes and utility bills.

Williams blames the stress of the situation for her husband's illness, which took his life. After meeting with DWP in an attempt to work out a payment plan, she said she decided she had no choice but to stop making mortgage payments and let the buildings on Browning Boulevard near Vermont Avenue go back to the bank.