The head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is stepping down to become chief executive of an electric company in her native Puerto Rico.
Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement Wednesday that Janisse Quiñones, the DWP’s top executive since 2024, brought “steady leadership and engineering expertise” to the utility. In her new job, Quiñones will work on modernizing Puerto Rico’s electric grid.
“During her tenure, LADWP reinforced electric grid and water system reliability, enhanced coordination during wildfire events, and advanced investments to strengthen resilience amid increasing climate pressures,” the statement said.
An interim general manager for DWP will be announced in the coming days, the mayor said.
City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez said she was “totally shocked” by Quiñones’ announcement, which comes as the agency is tackling several large-scale utility projects, including the $2.6-billion upgrade of the city’s Convention Center.
“It couldn’t come at a worse time for our city,” she said. “The Department of Water and Power has a great deal of work to do, from the Palisades fire recovery to the infrastructure they’re building out along the East San Fernando Valley light rail line.”
Quiñones faced criticism during the Jan. 7, 2025, Palisades fire, when a key reservoir was empty as firefighters battled the blaze.
Some said the lack of water in the Santa Ynez Reservoir, which had been drained as part of repairs to its cover, hampered the fight against the fire, which destroyed thousands of homes and left 12 people dead.
The DWP pushed back, saying the repairs were necessary to protect public health and that even if the reservoir had been full, there still would have been water pressure issues, considering the extraordinary demand on the system during the fire.
In November, a state investigation found that even if the reservoir had been full, flow rate in the pipes “would have been a limiting factor in maintaining pressure and the system would have been quickly overwhelmed.”
Since the fire, the DWP has been planning to place power lines underground in the Palisades to prevent future fires, at a cost of $650 million, according to a report commissioned by the city from global infrastructure firm AECOM.
During her tenure, Quiñones also oversaw the city’s transition away from coal, announcing in December that the utility had stopped receiving coal-powered electricity.
In the coming years, the utility must continue to adopt “environmentally sensitive” sources of energy — hydrogen, wind, solar — without dramatically driving up costs for ratepayers, said Richard Katz, a former DWP board president.
“We are fortunate to have among the cheapest utility rates in the country,” Katz said. “It’s going to be a struggle, but we have to keep it that way.”
The city has been planning to transition to 100% clean energy by 2035, which the DWP’s ratepayer advocate has warned could lead to higher bills for customers.
Quiñones’ hefty salary of $750,000, which drew attention when she was hired, was meant to be competitive with private utility companies. She previously was a senior vice president of electric operations at Pacific Gas & Electric Co.
Quiñones will begin work March 30 as CEO of Luma, a private company that operates and manages the electric power transmission and distribution system in Puerto Rico. In a statement, she said that returning home to serve in that role will be “a professional honor and a deeply personal commitment.”
“Strengthening and modernizing the Island’s electric system is essential to economic growth, public safety, and quality of life,” she said.
When Quiñones arrived at the DWP in 2024 to serve as general manager, the utility was still reeling from a corruption scandal.
In 2022, former DWP general manager David Wright pleaded guilty to bribery for his role in a scheme to award a no-bid $30-million contract to a company he planned to work for in the future.
“We will get this all done and f— anyone that tries to get in the way,” Wright wrote to the head of the company in a 2017 text.
Wright admitted that he planned to take a $1-million-a-year job with the company, along with the use of a Mercedes-Benz, in exchange for the DWP contract. He was sentenced to six years in prison.
Wright was succeeded by Marty Adams, who served as general manager prior to Quiñones.
