Klein/Ally Show: The Podcast - LADWP Bills

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

We'll get into an episode of Klein Alley's show in just a moment. But in the meantime, let's tell you about our absolute favorite place on the planet. Yep, that would be San Bernardino International Airport, where you can go through the airport process without waiting in long lines and overpaying for parking. Quick connections to the Bay Area and the world plus ski and snowboard in Provo from San Bernardino all winter long. Every other airport, you're going to be in long TSA lines. You're going to be miserable. You're going to say, oh, I've got to get there two, three hours before my flight, not at San Bernardino International Airport.

And now we send you on a direct flight into our podcast, which starts right now. So many comments coming through on the text line about people saying that I can't believe Klein stands to wipe. I didn't stand too white. I had already stood to put pants back on. But I should have prioritized the flush and I didn't. But regardless, it doesn't matter because we have more important things to get to right now. Believe it or not, there's more important. We can't spend another 10 minutes on this.

We could if we needed to, but we can't because there is a man out there fighting the good fight. And I would say there are a few things that bother me more. Paying for gas sucks. But I think the thing that I hate more than anything is when the utility bill arrives. in the mail, especially this time of year because you're paying for all of the things you did to try to stay alive during the summer. Now I get an email instead of a physical piece of mail, but even clicking on it, I'm like, close my eyes, then I open it and I go, no! I do the same. I open it slowly. I rip it open, so I feel how heavy it feels. I open it slowly, and it seems like it does not matter what efforts were made in my house at all. And then they give you those little graphs where it's like...

The graphs that normal people are here and you're up here, and I said, that's important. August goes, Yeah, and it just makes no sense. And there is a man that is now attempting to be a hero for us all. Because let's be honest, the prices of utilities, especially here, have gotten out of F in control. This man's gone rather viral this week. His name is Michael Reed. And he had a bill that arrived for, listen to this, $3,300.

$3,322 is L-A-D-W-P bill. And this is out of the norm for him. It's not like he has some mansion where he's normally getting thousands of dollars. Not only that, he claims that he was responsible, kept the thermostat at 74, regardless of how hot it could have been. This isn't a guy that wanted to crank it down

and live life in the 60s, which would have been nice. He kept it at 74, just really it's like the minimum bearable living situation when you're in the valley and it's hot. It's a San Fernando Valley guy. And he is now calling for a complete over, basically overhaul investigation into how L-A-DWP is even coming up with these numbers, because it feels like they're making them up at this point, and we're all too dumb to understand how it works anyway,

so we're just like, I guess we owe them more money. Well, and they set the prices right of how many cents per kilowatt or whatever the crap, and nobody understands kilowatts. So you're just like, oh, okay, I guess I owe this much. But I also think that with all the lawsuits that have happened as a result of the fires, all of that just leads these electric companies to charge us, whatever the hell they want so they can make up for the billions of dollars they owe L.A. His video has been viewed over a million times. This is some of it that we'll have mom with us.

People of Los Angeles, explain this to me. Am I powering the entire crypto mining grid of the San Fernando Valley? Or did LADWP just decide that I pay my mortgage twice this month? It's gotten to that point. It really is. Every little fee on there seems astronomical. Oh, they make up the fees. I mean, I opened up my September bill. expecting that the usual end of summer hit is going to be bad. But tell me why my total is 3,300. 3,300 plus, guys. Start swearing in this, so I can't play all of it on the radio.

We can put the link to it, though, so you can watch it on our Instagram at Klein Alley show. And now he's fighting for the people. First of all, welcome to K Rock, San Fernando Valley, future hero. Let's go ahead and talk about what's going on. What have you learned so far? Welcome. Hey, Kevin and Ali. Thanks for having me on. What's going on?

Oh, not much. Just trying to, you know, figure out this bill. I still don't understand it myself. And what is your normal bill? Like in the summer months, like you said, we can all expect it to be bad. But what is your bad for your place where you live? I mean, I've lived here since 2019. And the first summer, I think my bill was like $1,800.

And that kind of floored me. And it's just something that just keeps getting higher and higher. The Valley. I mean, even that is. insane. It is, it has gotten crazy. That $1,800, I've seen that before. I've seen that bill. And I go, it's two months. I go, well, it's two months, so I go, you got to do the math

on that. It's a two month, right? It's a two month bill, though, but still, that is a, that's still insane. Right, we're talking about a two-month bill you got, right? Yeah, it's a bi-monthly bill. I still understand why they do it that way either. Does they really want to stick it to you and make it hurt even more? And they want to confuse you. So you're now looking in, you started a change on org petition, and I think that this is something that most people that are listening to this. I don't think anyone has ever opened up their bill and said,

oh, that's surprisingly low this month. No one has said that. Take my money. What is, in your investigation since you started, because this is not what you do professionally, but you're looking into this now on behalf of the people. What have you found? Is there anything so far that you've been like, this seems not right?

I mean, just my basic research online, just in the past three years, it seems as if the cost of electricity alone, And according to just like a Google search, L-A-E-WP has increased their rates 30%. And it's like I was calculating this today, Kevin. I've paid L-A-D-WP more this year for utilities than I have in property taxes. Wow. And what has you discovered some kind of a heat tax or that there's all this extra stuff

that's being built into these bills now? Well, yeah, the tier system is like super confusing like you guys were saying. And it's just, there's like a huge lack of transparency. And I think that's super frustrating because when people call the LADWP, they don't really get an answer. I don't think they know it either. Aren't they having record profits, too? Isn't that the other thing? Like, aren't their profits through the roof?

I don't know exactly what their profits are, but they seem like they've got to be high. But just looking at electricity alone, they, on my bill, if you look at your bill, they charge you tax on electricity. I mean, we could start there by just removing tax on power. That would help people a lot. And then you also claim that there's basically another hidden car payment in the bill as well because they throw a, there's the sewer fee, which is another one of those annoying fees. And your sewer fee was like north of $300 as well. Yeah, sewer and sanitation was $450. So they're charging me to flush the toilet, Kevin.

This is the part that's crazy because obviously we do pay a ton of taxes. Sales tax just went up in L.A. as well now. We're north of 10%, which is super annoying too. and I know it doesn't seem like much if you're making a small purchase, but if you're making a bigger purchase, that adds up big time. And the idea that utilities are so much more expensive here than I think anywhere else as well, it is crazy that every time you flush the toilet now,

you're getting technically paid. But what is the solution, Mike? Because I see that you have this change.org petition, you know, and it has over 10,000 signatures already, but what is this going to do, launch an investigation and potentially, what, like a price cap? Like, what are you hoping for? Yeah, I mean, I would like LA City controller

Kenneth Mahita to, you know, perform an independent forensic audit of LADWP and then potentially look at the tier system and like maybe try and lower the amount of, you know, money they're charging people in tier three because that's where everybody's ending up in the summer because they're running their ACs. Yeah, is anyone not in tier? I'm curious. I'm being really serious. because I've seen the graph a million times.

I've gotten the graph. Doesn't matter where I live. I've lived here for now over 20 years in different houses, different apartments. I have never not been in the... Tier three. Tier three. I don't even know what you would have to do.

I feel like there's Amish people that couldn't stay in tier one. How do you stay in tier one? Then you have people like Vanessa and Ginger Justin who say that they put on their AC as little as possible just to get through the summer. But what tier are they in? Vanessa, what tier? But I wonder what tier.

Honestly, I think I'm in tier two. And I don't know what that means. She probably never puts on her AC and she's tier two. Yeah, and my house is a shoebox. Yeah, it's a studio. Even she's in tier two. And that's one little person living by herself. Right.

Not hardly using any utilities. And she's tier two. So what is tier one? Just a bathroom being air conditioning? I don't even know how you could be in tier one. I honestly don't even know. Like, Jake, you're in a shack. I know you don't pay your utilities as part of your rent, but you have any idea what

tier you're in? You've got to be in tier three because you take full advantage. You have AC blasting all day. It's going on right now. Jake can be tier five. I don't even know. I let my shower on. Yeah, Jake, you're a tier five guy.

Well, look, I think you're fighting a good fight, and I do think once this gets looked into, we will realize that we are all being ripped off in a major way. I think we're being ripped off in everything, with electricity, with gas, with insurance, all of it, right? And if you actually look into it, you know, it's just about forcing people to investigate this stuff. And they don't want to do anything because it requires a lot of paperwork, and it, of course, requires all the companies to finally stop overcharging everybody. Mike, I know you have kids as well.

often are you, are they the type that like leave the lights on? You're constantly going around trying to shut off lights and yell at them about the value of electricity. Yeah, I know I'm getting old, Kevin, because I'm that I'm that dad that's going around the house, turn off lights. So that's definitely a problem over here too. But apparently that doesn't even do anything anymore. It doesn't make that much of a difference. That was like based on the old old school way that lights used to work. And that's apparently like you could, I don't know, someone had said to me, you can leave your lights on 24 hours a day. That's going to change your bill like dollars or pennies or something. But it's the AC. It's crushing us. The water's crushing us.

and how can you survive? If you live in the valley, they should change the tier system, at least if you live in the valley. If you live by the beach, maybe keep it as it is. But if you live in the valley, it gets painfully hot.

Right. No choice. Exactly. Well, and then if you make any updates because they're like, oh, you just have an old AC. So now you just pay thousands of dollars for a new AC and you'll save money.

And you're like, but that's spending more money. So you feel like you can't win. Complete oversight. This man is fighting the good fight, so we wanted to give you a platform to get that out there. If everyone feels like you're getting

completely ripped off and robbed every time you open your utility bill. Sign the change.org petition. We'll put it up on our Instagram, McLean Alley's show. And update us, please, Micah, as you make some progress here, I want you to know that we always stand for good causes. Ali went to a town council meeting

because she didn't like the fact that gas stations were trying to charge for air for your tires. Air is free. Air is free, she said. She went and spoke to the... Yeah, and there's all these signs on the side of the air machines saying it's a dollar or it's $2 for five minutes. It's not.

It's $0 for all the minutes you want. So we will fight with you. We stand beside you. Thank you, guys. I am currently in a battle right now about an ice cream cake situation that's happening at a grocery store where they're keeping regular cakes in the freezer with a title that says ice cream cakes. We cut into it, guess what? No ice cream. That's not a changed dot or petition yet, but it could be.

But I'm just saying you're with your people now. I'll sign your petition. Great. All right, great. 949 said I did no AC last month or this week and I haven't left tier one yet. they're still in tier one? They're still in tier one. They're going to die a heat stroke in there.

They're going to die as a tier one or a heat stroke. Right, and that's the point Michael was making his video, which I'm just setting it at a normal temperature so we all don't die. What about people in like Nevada and in Palm Springs? Like I was talking to a guy, the cameraman who came over here and did an interview yesterday, and he said he lived in Nevada in Vegas,

and his bill was never over $300. How is that possible? Right, right. It's a Hoover Dam somehow. I don't know how, but somehow that's involved in it. It's that damn, damn. So thanks for the other. update and hopefully we get to the bottom of this.

And please, if you can figure out how to explain it, explain it because it does feel like we're getting ripped off every goddamn month. Thank you so much for having me, guys. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having us. I've got to take a break.