ยป Victory in Victoria! (Sorta)
Apparently the petition to save the Blue Bridge accumulated over 10,000 signatures — far and away more than the ~6,500 they needed.
Full disclosure: I signed. I have a soft spot for the bridge and I wanted to give democracy one last try. I also like the shit-stirring angle of the political action.
More analysis after the jump:
Overall I see this situation as a failure on the part of the Mayor’s office. Not of planning and execution, but of communications and public relations.
I’m skeptical that the firm which recommended a new bridge is also one of those bidding on the construction. I know from government software contracting that the consultant recommending a new system is usually the one hired to build it. This smacks of a cronyist handout.
Still, for the sake of my point, I can stipulate that we need a replacement bridge — that the Office of the Mayor is right — and that we need to borrow $42 gajillion or whatever to build it.
The problem that directly gave rise to the petition, and now a probable plebiscite, is that the city government sprung this on the populace, paid lip service to community consultation, and then fought the petitioners. At every step of the way the correct action was more communication, more transparency, and more education. Once the embattled Mayor gave in to a bunker mentality his plans were doomed.
The first I heard of the bridge replacement were some whispers in the local blogosphere that I felt safe ignoring. Then suddenly the decision had been made and the public was asked to vote on a new design. The design we voted for was ignored, or so the rumours go. Once the petition started the city said — no worries — all of the concerns of the petitioners had already been considered and dismissed in secret.
And this is exactly my point: Whispers, rumours, secrets, and last-minute official pronouncements made up far too much of the debate. If I had run the communications for the bridge project this is how they would have gone:
1) I would have announced immediately after the election that we were going to examine earthquake-proofing the bridge.
2) I would have announced the results of the engineering study saying it wouldn’t survive a quake and needed to be fixed or replaced.
3) I would have announced the cost/benefit of the fix/replace decision.
4) I would have had an open, juried architectural competition to design the new bridge.
5) I would have announced plans to give the old bridge a commemorative decommissioning party.
The mayor’s office estimates that the cost of the referendum in borrowing fees will approach $8 million. I would have charged $3 million for communications consulting, thus saving the city a cool $5 million (plus the costs of the vote itself and all the PR surrounding it — including the petition).
I’d like to nitpick a detail: What firm would be better to estimate bridge refurbishment and replacement projects than a firm that does that sort of work? It’s standard practice to allow firms to participate in every phase of a procurement process. And if those processes aren’t fair, the other bidders are quick to cry foul.
Besides, Delcan’s assessment is written with a bias for repair!
Jared
5 Jan 10 at 5:07 pm
Without reference to the specific details of this case, it seems that a firm which consults on whether or not a project should be undertaken should be barred from bidding on that project.
There’s a clear adverse selection problem at play there. If you’re selling widget production machines and you’re compensated on sales thereof, if the government asks you if it needs to produce widgets your response, if you’re halfway competent at sales, is likely to be: “yes, and here’s a catalogue of our products — might I recommend the most expensive one?”
Conversely, if you can make money on the consultation but not the actual sale then you’ve at least got a vague incentive to look for reasons not to go ahead — your competition will benefit if you recommend procurement.
If you’re allowed to consult and sell there’s no real incentive for you to turn in a brutally honest consultation report.
Jack
5 Jan 10 at 7:41 pm
A construction firm should not be recommending that the bridge be replaced, it should be engineers. Construction firms build things and estimate costs for building things. Architects and engineers design and evaluate construction. Architects and engineers that work for a construction firm have a conflict of interest shouldn’t he hired for all stages of evaluation, design and construction, without evaluation by another architect or engineer at some stage. The easiest step to review is the design step. This would have been a little late in this case, and who knows if they would have been hired.
Fred
5 Jan 10 at 8:25 pm
[...] The City of Victoria council now has three options for the Johnson Street Bridge: [...]
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