Don't Retreat, Rethink.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

The drama of urban snow removal has preoccupied this newspaper for 150 years. In 1910, The Times wrote about no-show contractors failing to get men and wagons onto the streets after a storm that buried New York City and snarled the Long Island Rail Road. In 2010, we — and pretty much everyone in the city — criticized a no-show mayor who left town before a storm that buried the city and snarled the Long Island Rail Road.

So we were intrigued by a report that Quincy, Mass., has found a way to get rid of snow more efficiently and more cheaply. Last year, it decided to pay contractors not by the hour but by the inch to remove snow in about one-fourth of the city. A storm of up to 2 inches cost $8,455 per ward, rising as the drifts got deeper, up to $42,500 per ward for storms of 14 inches to 18 inches. Above that, the rate fell sharply. This means companies take a gamble when bidding on a contract, and Quincy is unlikely to be bankrupted by a monster storm.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/opinion/22tue4.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha211

This is the sort of thinking we need. Keeping the roads clear is absolutely a responsibility of government, albeit often one contracted out to private companies, and while in this case speed is of the greatest essence, it's not bad to save money either. This is good government, and privatizing it, especially this service in particular, doesn't seem like it would be any better.

Of course, if you read to the bottom of the link, everything old is new again.

Comments

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Maybe. If it can change in NY (which remains to be seen), it can change here.

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

I don't know if something like this would work in Chicago.

Mayor Michael Bilandic was unseated by Jane Byrne in 1979 because of the snowstorms of 1979. Since then, snow removal has been a huge political issue in Chicago.

As a result, it is not unusual for Chicago to salt the streets for no apparent reason.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Jane Byrne was pretty cool. She was such a ham when the Blues Brothers was filmed there ;)

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

This is good government, and privatizing it, especially this service in particular, doesn't seem like it would be any better.

I don't think I follow, if they're hiring the work out to contractors, aren't they privatizing it?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

no, because it's still being managed by the government. Privatizing would be creating a system where people contract directly with the service provider.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

I think I'm missing something? Aren't they contracting the work out to service providers who are then free to hire people to do the work? Seems to me that the contractors would be responsible for managing the snow removal after they've won the bid to do the work. The only sense in which the government is managing is that they're overseeing the bidding process and, presumably, taking steps to ensure the work was done promptly and correctly, which all seems consistent with "privatizing". Compare this system, for example, to one in which the city owns a number of snow plows and has a number of drivers on payroll.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

As far as I know this is called a concession. The services are done by private contractors but still the work is funded and ordered and supervised by the local government. We have many things this way here - from public transportation to the electricity network to the trash collectors to most soccer stadiums. They're owned by the municipality but that doesn't mean the municipality can't temporarily give them for use by private entities. As opposed to selling them to private entities who can later do with the assets/services whatever they want.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

Yes, insofar as the government retains possession and ultimate oversight, it's not the most radical privatization possible, I agree. Still, I think when people, talk about "privatization", they often mean hiring work out to contractors rather than having the government take care of it more directly.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

There are various levels of privatization and I think people are aware of that and make the distinction. At least here they do.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

Oh, this careful nuancing hadn't been apparent to me in the post or subsequent thread, I apologize if I erred in stating the obvious.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

I'm just going to butt and concur with htpcl this is the way many things work in Scandinavia and other "socialist" countries as well. (being utterly ironic using the expression here, obviously)

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree. And Canada allegedly has socialized medicine, but in fact what they do is contract out the health provision services to private providers.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

which is very similar to how the new US Health Care law works, except in Canada, all the payments are collected in taxes and disbursed from the government.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think Canada is, essentially, "everyone has Medicaid".

[dwer.livejournal.com]

If only Obama had followed the same path. Easily understandable, reasonable, works.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

It's still socialized, don't worry.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

they don't.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

it is administering the service. The customers pay the city, not the provider. The city makes sure that the contractors are meeting the requirements for the job. The city tells the contractors how many trucks they want on the road. The city tells the contractors when to start the job, and assesses if they're finished when the contractors say they are.

This is the same kind of situation with building construction. When a city needs to build a new city hall, they don't hire construction workers directly, they contract it out, and administer the process.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

The customers pay the city, not the provider

Oh, I see, yes, there could be even more radical privatization but that would occur only in some radical Ayn Randian situation in which the government was no longer responsible for the roads, no? In a situation in which governments still build and maintain roads, what kind of scenario would be more privatized than this?

The city tells the contractors how many trucks they want on the road.

Does the city tell the contractors this? Why, wouldn't they just tell them how quickly they needed the work done?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm making some judgment calls. Maybe they'd do what you suggest.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Tell you that last storm that hit-- the primary roads out here in Brooklyn were cleared pretty quick, but it took nearly 10 hours to get to the side streets. And OT-- it was nearly 68 on Friday (people wearing tees and shorts), and that cold front went through Saturday-- this AM it was only 15. It's insanely cold today BUT I LOVE COLD WEATHER AND SNOW ;)

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Efficient work flow I'd suppose. The city would always want the primary roads cleared first and as quickly as possible.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

No, this is a common myth. See: "Bush is privatizing social security" for the same problem. If the government administers the work, it doesn't become privatized, it becomes contracted.

To put it another way, the government doesn't construct streets and bridges anymore. They contract the work out to private contracting organizations to do it on the government dime.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

well, i wouldn't say it's a myth, I'd say the concept of "privatization" is broad. It's used to denote transfer of ownership from the government to the private sector but also transfer of function from the government sector to the private sector.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

See, for example, the Wikipedia article on privatization, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization) where they use it to describe Ancient Greece "when governments contracted out almost everything to the private sector" (emphasis added)

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

That Wikipedia can get it wrong is not a surprise to me.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

yes, yes, it's "common parlance" but Wikipedia is, of course, too common to be taken as an indication of what in fact constitutes common parlance.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

You are awfully obstinate about the definitions of words. English is, I'm afraid, a deeply populist language.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

True, but not so populist as to where we actively lose the meanings of words.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Except it's not really known that way in common parlance.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

Well, actually it is. you observed that it's often used in the context of the social security debate. I pointed to a clear example in Wikipedia, In fact, it's very often explicitly defined that way, e.g., from a quick google search.

http://www.answers.com/topic/privatization: "...Services formerly provided by government may be contracted out ..."

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The services are still provided by the government, just executed by private groups.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

um, right.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

no, it's just (your words) a "common myth".

Just how common must this myth become before you'll accept that it constitutes parlance?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Privatizing is supposed to mean transferring the responsibility to the private sector, not just transferring the actions. The government is still responsible here, so it's not an example of privatization. Privatizing also conveys the concept of direct competition (or at least potential for it) for the customer's patronage, and the customer here can still only patronize the government.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

That's a restriction that's contrary to how I've seen the term defined and used, see discussion above.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

It doesn't make logical sense to mean anything other than what I described. To call "contracting" privatization erases the useful meaning of the term as distinct from what government normally does.

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

The unions representing city workers might take a different view. In a fully unprivatized system, the work would be done by public employees, using equipment maintained by public employees, operated out of city owned facilities. I would call this a private public partnership, although the distinction in meaningless for most people.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

A public-private partnership is not privatization, is the point. It's just contracting out the government job. It's not clear what view you think the city workers' unions would take. If you just mean that they wouldn't like it, sure, but that's not relevant to what it is.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Keeping the roads clear is absolutely a responsibility of government

Only because they currently own the roads. It's the responsibility of the owner, regardless of who that is.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

and they should currently, and always, own the roads.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Nice to see some people adopting common-sense ideas and using them well.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

my thoughts exactly.