He Has A Lot To Learn
The Local Puppy Trainer had an interesting little piece about a local government contract: County tries to save money in sewage plant demolition
FORT WALTON BEACH — Okaloosa County Water and Sewer Director Jeff Littrell has proposed using in-house crews to demolish the old Garnier’s wastewater treatment plant on Essex Road in Ocean City.
The move could save the county “hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Littrell said Tuesday.
The county had budgeted about $1.5 million for the demolition to be completed by a private contractor.
“We think it’ll come in significantly lower than that,” Littrell said.
Littrell goes on to note that there are massive amounts of recyclable metals in the building, including large motors that the county might be able to sell as used. If the motors can’t be sold that way, they still contain huge copper coils. He also mentioned the stainless steel piping and fixtures in the facility that are premium recyclables.
Poor Mr. Littrell just doesn’t get it – not giving out that contract will cost the county commissioners campaign contributions, and I have no doubt that the selected contractor has already sold the recyclables and is just waiting to pick them up to pad their profit [no doubt, charging the county the cost of hauling them off to a construction debris landfill].
Sure the water department can do the job cheaper, but they aren’t as “efficient” as the private sector.
Note the wording of that Republican mantra: “The private sector is more efficient than the government.” They don’t say “cheaper”, they say “more efficient”. I’ve seen a lot of attempts at privatizing government functions over the years, but I have yet to see one that provides the same level of service as the government at a lower cost beyond the second year.
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A parish (county) that I lived in once had their own paving crew to pave county roads. They had done the math and figured out that paving the county roads was cheaper than going out to re-gravel and re-grade them after every big rain storm, and there were no paving contractors in the (very rural) county.
Fast forward a decade or so, and the notion that private enterprise can do it cheaper takes hold. Yeppers, sure enough, they laid off their paving crew and sold the paving machine. And yeppers, sure enough, the roads are turning back to gravel by default because the amount of money that was sufficient to pave and maintain them when the county had their own road crew and paving machine only barely manages to keep a tenth of the road network maintained.
Whenever you hear that “more efficient” mantra, think: More efficient for “whom”? I think “more efficient” in the manner of a Hoover vacuum cleaner, myself — more efficient at hoovering money out of taxpayer pockets to put into the hands of cronies of the parish councilors.
– Badtux the Efficient Penguin
Whenever you hear that “more efficient” mantra, think: More efficient for “whom”? I think “more efficient” in the manner of a Hoover vacuum cleaner, myself — more efficient at hoovering money out of taxpayer pockets to put into the hands of cronies of the parish councilors.
bingo!
proving once again that that at least they’re not liars…
on second thought… they’re liars too, but at least sometimes they tell the truth, if not exactly the whole truth. 😈
I remember when they hit my Mother for a special “paving” tax on some property she owned in a neighboring county. People raised hell because the contractor was charging for laying a road bed, and the bed was already there – red clay. All that was necessary was to grade it, roll it, and put down the asphalt. There certainly was no need to pay for more red clay, which certainly wouldn’t have been bought or applied by the contractor. The tax amount dropped like a rock.
That’s the sort of thing that goes on all the time because county commissioners vote without investigating anything, beyond how friendly contractors are.
Yes, Hipparchia, they do occasionally tell the truth, but they don’t realize it.