CULVER CITY, Calif. — Theresa Harmon recently called a staff meeting and laid down the law. Lights off whenever anyone walks out of a room, she told her 12 employees. Lights off in the front lobby overnight. No light but skylight in the hallway.
Harmon owns the Wellness Spa in Culver City, but these days she is anything but relaxed. Her monthly electric bill more than doubled in June, to $450, and she has yet to be placated by the slightly better $300 bill in July after "we turned off everything."
"We're 1,200 square feet, and we're paying $400 a month," she said. "That's ridiculous. I don't think it's fair. Where's the proof that we're having this much of a crisis? And why not L.A.? L.A. is a bigger city."
It has been a crisis-free summer, one without the blackouts and power shortages of earlier this year, when California was scrounging around for new supplies of electricity. Thanks to unusually cool weather and conservation efforts, among other factors, the state has a power surplus these days.
The higher rates left over from that scare are still vexing consumers, many of whom are quick to assign blame.
When in doubt, resent Los Angeles. Los Angeles has its own municipal power company, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which was immune to the problems confronting investor-owned utilities like Pacific Gas and Electric, which filed for bankruptcy protection, and Southern California Edison, whose rates rose sharply, because it did not participate in the power deregulation experiment that is regarded as the source of the state's energy trouble.
While customers around the state have shouldered rate increases of up to 40 percent, those in Los Angeles have continued stable rates to look forward to. Some Californians look at their neighbors in Los Angeles with more envy than anger. Some, like Yacob Mahda, 42, in Culver City, have decided to become one of the Joneses rather than try to keep up with them. Mahda, an electronics company supervisor, said higher electric rates gave him one more reason to sell his three-bedroom house and move "to the L.A. side."