The Local Government Is Incapable Of Performing Basic Functions?

Firms like Facebook should resurface San Jose streets.

For any “hypergrowth” company like Facebook to build in San Jose, add 1,000 homes and 10,000 employees, it should be required that it fund the resurfacing of our streets, expressways and highways.

The more people there are as a result of businesses, the more cars or buses there are. Every residential street too, whether in low- or high-income areas, should be repaved and the company should pay for it.

COLORADO: Department of Transportation in Total Disarray. “CDOT Executive Director: Shoshana Lew, a history major in college, became the head of CDOT at age 35 with no engineering or construction management experience due to political connections in Washington, D.C.”

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The convergence of two events has turned CDOT upside down. The first was the Orwellian named “Keep Jobs in Colorado Act of 2013.” Previously under CRS Sec. 24-92-109 all public projects in excess of $50,000 had to be “awarded by competitive bid.” The drawbacks to this method include occasional “bid rigging” by competing contractors. In addition, so-called “change orders” can drive up costs of a competitively bid project. But overall this method, which was used for decades by CDOT, was the least subjective and generally viewed fairest method to have projects completed at the lowest cost.

The 2013 act substituted the “lowest bid” method with the so-called “best value” model in which bids come in as either (1) Design Build; or (2) Construction Manager/General Contractor (CMGC). While these techniques have various theoretical advantages, especially for unique highly complex projects, including potentially cutting down the time to complete a project, it is a highly subjective selection process with the opportunity for corruption massively increased. To prevent cronyism and exorbitant cost increases, it requires high expertise and absolute diligence on the part of CDOT. What CDOT got was the exact opposite.

Lew’s primary qualification, according to insiders, was her close relationship to Michelle Obama who called the newly elected governor for a favor — find a job for Shoshana Lew. Lew is the daughter of President Obama’s Chief of Staff and later Secretary of the Treasury, Jack Lew.

In a word: Democrats.

 

h/t SG

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