POLITICS: Good riddance to LADWP CEO

Good riddance to Department of Water and Power (LADWP) CEO Janisse Quiñones, the official who left a local reservoir dry before the devastating Palisades Fire in January 2025.

Quiñones joined LADWP in May 2024. On paper, she was qualified. In practice: a disaster.

She is leaving her $750,000-per-year job to take over as CEO of Puerto Rico’s power grid, LUMA.

One feels bad for the people of Puerto Rico: Haven’t they suffered enough?

The 117-million-gallon Santa Ynez Reservoir above Pacific Palisades was already empty when Quiñones took over at LADWP. But she took no action to finish the repairs or refill the reservoir — not even after a December blaze in Malibu highlighted the urgent need for an emergency store of water.

The reservoir above Palisades had been built in the 1960s precisely because of the risk of wildfires in the Santa Monica Mountains, along the boundary between the city and the chaparral.

Yet when fire erupted on the morning of Jan. 7, the reservoir was offline. By evening, fire hydrants iwere dry — partly due to a collapse in water pressure as pipes burst from burned-out homes, but also due to the sheer lack of supply.

The reservoir had been drained to repair a cracked cover that had been installed to comply with federal regulations. It was emptied again earlier this year, after another crack was found.

Also emptied: public trust in Quiñones and the LADWP, who refused to take responsibility for the disaster. Instead, Quiñones accepted an award praising her for her leadership in the crisis.

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Quiñones is a qualified engineer with experience in public utilities management. But in her brief tenure at LADWP, she stressed everything except water and power, focusing on “woke” priorities like diversity and identity politics. 

In a LinkedIn post, Quiñones marked “a year as the first Latina to lead LADWP,” as if ethnicity mattered more than performance.

True, LADWP rushed to rebuild infrastructure after the fire — but that work is hardly done, with ugly poles hastily erected along the scenic Pacific Coast Highway, and no hint of funding yet for the necessary job of burying cables underground. 

LADWP has also been notorious at brushing aside residents’ concerns about the type of work it is doing in the fire zone.

It may be coincidence, but it is noteworthy that the announcement that Quiñones would be leaving came shortly after a judge denied LADWP’s request to dismiss a lawsuit by Palisades residents.

With the lawsuit moving ahead, LADWP will have to respond to claims that management failures and poor infrastructure contributed to the disaster and to billions of dollars in damage.

It is possible that Quiñones will have to testify, if the case comes to trial.

A lawyer for the plaintiffs claimed that LA Mayor Karen Bass had forced Quiñones to go.

Whether that is true or not remains to be seen.

What is clear is that Quiñones failed in her duty as CEO, and never took responsibility.

LA is not sad to see her go.