On her first day -- a recent Saturday -- she attended a meeting of the Neighborhood Council DWP Committee and stayed late to talk with members of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council.
She is to meet soon with the Valley Alliance of Neighborhood Councils and plans to get around the city as much as her predecessor, Ron Nichols did.
In between, she has tried to get a grip on the agency's problems with its multi-million dollar billing system, started collections from its largest customers and pushed to hire more meter readers and customer service representatives who answer the telephones.
"My immediate agenda is in keeping with being pragmatic," Edwards said in an interview. "We need to get the bills out and the phones answered."
And she said the agency has to be more honest with its customers about problems such as with the billing system when they come up to restore any level of trust and confidence by the public in the utility.
Beyond that, she said, her focus will be to get a grip on how the agency performs.
"You can't have a government that's been in place as long as this agency has been here without it becoming a layered bureaucracy," Edwards said. "It will take someone to ask why we are doing today what we did 10 years ago.
"This city is very complex, which adds to the bureaucracy. I am not going to fool myself into believing we can do here what we did at a smaller city. For one thing, there are more people sitting at the table."
Edwards, who will earn $345,000 annually, came to the DWP after 13 years working for the city of Anaheim, which she joined after working 24 years at the LADWP.
"I was assistant general manager for customer service here and wanted to know what it was like to run a utility," Edwards said. "We had a lot of fun in Anaheim, but then it became time to move on and let the people there take over."
She was elevated to the post of city manager where she worked directly with the mayor and City Council.
When Nichols made his surprise announcement to step down, Edwards said she asked to meet with Los Angeles city officials to offer her input on what she thought was needed in the job -- to bring in someone with experience running a utility.
Her offer resulted in landing the job.
Anaheim Mayor Pro Tem Kris Murray said Edwards will be missed in the city, where she helped transform its utility.
"There were 200 to 300 people who turned out for her farewell party, many of them with tears in their eyes because she was leaving," Murray said.
"We recognize this is an incredible career opportunity for her, but she did a wonderful job for Anaheim."
Like Los Angeles, Anaheim has its own water and power utility and Murray credited Edwards with transforming it by developing a renewable energy portfolio, while keeping rates low and responding to customers.
"We had a policy that all complaints would be handled within 24 hours," Murray said. "I'm sure the DWP customers would like to see something like that."
In fact, in one of her first official acts, Edwards sent out a letter to DWP customers apologizing for problems with the billing system, created a new web page to offer possible help and promised to bring on staff to deal with the issues.
Working for the DWP was Edwards' first real job when she was 19. But it was more than that to her.
Her father worked for the DWP and her grandfather worked for the utility's predecessor, the Bureau of Lighting and Power.
On her office wall is a picture of her grandfather and the hand-written retirement scroll he was presented.
"My grandfather would be tickled about me having this job," Edwards said. "My father was more of a traditionalist. He was proud of me, but he didn't understand why I couldn't be a conventional housewife."
Edwards grew up in the San Fernando Valley, having been born in Van Nuys and raised in Granada Hills.
"The Valley was my old stomping grounds," she said.
Edwards said she will try to bring a practical approach to the job, recognizing the limits of rapid change.
"The next 10 years will bring more change than we have seen in the last 50," Edwards said. "You wouldn't use the same cell phone you had five years ago. The technology is on a curve going straight up and we have to be ready for it."
That will be particularly true in the power field, she said, where the city needs to diversify if it is to be successful in getting off of fossil fuels.
"Utilities tend to think in 30-year time frames," she said. "That was helpful in some areas like pipelines and power polls. But we need to think through in terms of our capacity and what we will be as an agency."
In addition, she will have to deal with the ongoing controversy over two trusts affiliated with DWP that have received $40 million over 10 years. Brian D'Arcy, business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 18, has refused to provide information for an audit of the funds.
Edwards said she has yet to meet with D'Arcy and hopes to see him soon.
Edwards is already drawing kudos for her willingness to reach out to customers and others.
Tony Wilkinson, who chairs the neighborhood council-based DWP oversight committee, said he was impressed with her showing up at the weekend meeting.
"I have great hopes for her," Wilkinson said. "She has the background to make things work and she knows how the political machine works. What we will be watching for is how much she can resist the political pressure to use the DWP to make up spending in the general fund."
One of the challenges she will face is the comparison with Nichols, who actively reached out to the neighborhood councils.
"Nichols came out all the time and under his regime we felt like we had access and they he understood what the public wanted," Wilkinson said.
Edwards said she is aware of all that Nichols did and she plans to model much of her outreach efforts after him.
Another neighborhood activist and frequent critic of the DWP is Jack Humphreville, who said he is pleased with what he has heard about her.
"She is not a political hack," Humphreville said. "She knows about utilities and what is needed to make them run. The test will be what she is able to do about plans to increase the rates."
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