San Fernando Valley man's $3k power bill being investigated by LA city controller

A San Fernando Valley man who is documenting his mission to lower his astronomically high power bill on social media has found others with similar issues as his own case gets investigated by city officials. 

He's calling for an independent audit of summer utility bills after getting charged more than $3,300 on his recent bill from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. 

"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?" Micah Reed said in a social media video that has gone viral, as other customers reach out with similar concerns. 

Reed said that he's surprised his video gained so much traction, but he felt like there was no way he could be the only one. 

"As someone who lives in the valley, you know when you get your bill for the summer, it's going to hurt a little bit," Reed said. "But I wasn't expecting it to hurt this bad."

He said that the most recent bill was more than $600 higher than last year during the same pay period. As he finds more and more people facing the same struggle, including parents of young infants and elderly residents, he's hoping that someone in power can take action. 

For those reasons, he started a Change.org petition called "Cap the Heat Tax" to demand an independent audit and rate relief during the summer months. Now, the Los Angeles City Controller has launched an investigation. 

"It doesn't sit right with me; it doesn't sit right with a lot of folks," said LA City Controller Kenneth Mejia while speaking with CBS LA. "We already did a huge data request as well to understand these bills."

Mejia also referred CBS LA to the city's Office of Public Accountability, which was created specifically to advocate for ratepayers. 

"So, our office is doing that independent evaluation in realtime," said Tim O'Connor, the executive director of the OPA . "We understand when bills are high, especially in the summer season, people really start to ask this question."

When asked about Reed's bill specifically, O'Connor said they focus on the broad overall systems in place as opposed to investigating individual bills. 

Reed is hopeful that his movement is enough to put heat on LADWP and bring people's bills down. 

"We're talking about people just, like, living. I"m not doing anything reckless here, I'm just running the AC cause it's so hot outside," he said.