San Francisco is spending $1.7 million on one public toilet. It will be built by union labor, and won’t be finished until 2025. But the workers’ benefits are very, very, very good!
S.F. is spending $1.7 million on one public toilet: ‘What are they making it out of — gold?’
By Heather Knight
October 19, 2022
San Francisco politicians will gather at the Noe Valley Town Square Wednesday afternoon to congratulate themselves for securing state money for a long-desired toilet in the northeast corner of the charming plaza.
Another public toilet in a city with far too few of them is excellent. But the details of this particular commode? They’re mind-boggling, maddening and encapsulate so much of what’s wrong with our city government.
The toilet — just one loo in 150 square feet of space — is projected to cost $1.7 million, about the same as a single-family home in this wildly overpriced city. And it won’t be ready for use until 2025.
Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco) secured the $1.7 million from the state for the toilet after hearing “loud and clear” from the community that families needed a bathroom. The plumbing is already there, added when the plaza was constructed six years ago, but there was never money for the actual bathroom. Until Haney stepped in.
The former San Francisco supervisor said the Recreation and Parks Department told him the going rate for one public bathroom was $1.7 million so he secured the full amount, not questioning the pricetag.
“They told me $1.7 million, and I got $1.7 million,” Haney explained. “I didn’t have the option of bringing home less of the bacon when it comes to building a toilet. A half a toilet or a toilet-maybe-someday is not much use to anyone.”
True, but instead we have a toilet-maybe-in-more-than-two-years that could have paid to house a family instead. So why is a public bathroom so insanely expensive, and why does it take so long to build? A joint statement from Rec and Park and the Department of Public Works, which will work together to build this extravagant bathroom, pointed to several reasons.
For one thing, the cost to build anything in San Francisco is exorbitant. The city is the most expensive in the world to build in — even topping Tokyo, Hong Kong and New York City. We’re No. 1! Even for places to go No. 1.
Like everywhere, construction costs have risen 20% to 30% in the past couple of years due to global supply chain issues and the rising costs of fuel, labor and materials. But like always, there’s a certain preciousness to the process in San Francisco. (Just look at the years-long, ongoing quest to design and manufacture bespoke city trash cans.)
“It’s important to note that public projects and their overall cost estimates don’t just reflect the price of erecting structures,” the statement said. “They include planning, drawing, permits, reviews and public outreach.”
For a toilet? Apparently so.
An architect will draw plans for the bathroom that the city will share with the community for feedback. It will also head to the Arts Commission’s Civic Design Review committee comprised of two architects, a landscape architect and two other design professionals who, under city charter, “conduct a multi-phase review” of all city projects on public land — ranging from buildings to bathrooms to historic plaques, fences and lamps.
The web-page describing that process states the point is to ensure “that each project’s design is appropriate to its context in the urban environment, and that structures of the highest design quality reflect their civic stature.”
Sorry, kid. I know you’ve got to go, but have you considered the context of the urban environment?
The project will then head to the Rec and Park Commission and to the Board of Supervisors. According to the city’s statement, it will also be subject to review under the California Environmental Quality Act. Then, the city will put the project up for bid.
“Once we start the project, we’ll have a clearer timeline, but we expect to be able to complete the project in 2025,” the statement read.
The city said the $1.7 million estimate “is extremely rough” and budgets “for the worst-case scenario due to the onerous demands and unpredictable costs levied by PG&E,” the possibility code requirements could change during the project and in case other unexpected circumstances come up.
The city is in a legal battle with Pacific Gas and Electric Co. over the city’s claim that the utility has slowed projects and forced them to be more expensive unless they obtain electricity directly from the utility instead of the city’s Public Utilities Commission.
The bathroom will be built by unions whose workers will “earn a living wage and benefits, including paid sick time, leave and training.”
“While this isn’t the cheapest way to build, it reflects San Francisco’s values,” the statement read.
I’m a union member myself, and of course the majority of our public projects should be union built. But does a $1.7 million single bathroom really reflect San Francisco’s values? I don’t think so.
The supervisors in 2019 approved a Project Labor Agreement between the city and unions that requires union labor for all “covered projects” — but this bathroom isn’t one of them because it’s not worth $10 million and it didn’t come from bond funding.
There are other, much cheaper options. I e-mailed Tom Hardiman, executive director of the Modular Building Institute in Charlottesville, Virginia, and asked him to guess what San Francisco was spending to build one toilet in 150 square feet of space.
“I’m going to guess high, I think, and say $200,000,” he wrote back.
I seemed to nearly give him a heart attack by telling him the actual figure in a subsequent phone call.
“This is to build one public restroom?” he asked incredulously. “What are they making it out of — gold and fine Italian marble? It would be comical if it wasn’t so tragically flawed.”
He then said he’d do some research and found a cheaper option within minutes. He said Chad Kaufman, CEO of Public Restroom Company, just delivered and installed seven modular bathrooms in Los Angeles for the same price San Francisco will spend to build one. These are not Porta Potties, but instead have concrete walls with stucco exteriors and nice fixtures with plumbing.
“There will be some onsite labor which absolutely can be union,” Hardiman said, pointing to crane operators, laborers and plumbers.
And, he said, they could be delivered in eight months.
Phil Ginsburg, director of the Recreation and Parks Department, said many park systems around the country use pre-fabricated restrooms, which are much cheaper — and he hopes San Francisco becomes more politically open to them too. The department has occasionally used them in the past — including at the Redwood Grove playground in McLaren Park — and it’s unclear why one seems off the table for Noe Valley.
“Given how much the public values and needs public restrooms, I would hope these could be more common features in our parks that don’t currently have restrooms,” he said. “Our parks continue to need investment and every dollar saved by installing one allows us to make additional improvements elsewhere in our parks.”
This New York Times article on the failure of California’s high speed rail reminds me of the chapter “The Moratorium on Brains” from Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged
This New York Times article on the failure of California’s high speed rail reminds me of the chapter “The Moratorium on Brains” from Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged.
In that chapter from the fictional book, everyone on a passenger train died because the train was controlled by politics instead of common sense.
This new article from the New York Times explains how the real world train’s ridiculous, absurd, irrational route was chosen based on politics instead of on common sense.
The New York Times article states:
“… the design for the nation’s most ambitious infrastructure project was never based on the easiest or most direct route. Instead, the train’s path out of Los Angeles was diverted across a second mountain range to the rapidly growing suburbs of the Mojave Desert – a route whose most salient advantage appeared to be that it ran through the district of a powerful Los Angeles county supervisor.”
Wow. That’s just dumb.
The article then goes on to state many different reasons why the project is so far behind schedule, and so far over budget. These blunders are the result of decisions being made based on politics instead of on logic.
By comparison, look at the very successful high speed rail in other parts of the world, such as Japan and Western Europe. They designed and built their high speed rail systems based on logic and rational thinking, not politics.
You can read Rand’s entire novel for free at this link. The chapter that I mentioned begins on page 523.
https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/atlas-shrugged.pdf
Here’s the New York Times article:
How California’s Bullet Train Went Off the Rails
America’s first experiment with high-speed rail has become a multi-billion-dollar nightmare. Political compromises created a project so expensive that almost no one knows how it can be built as originally envisioned.
By Ralph Vartabedian
October 9, 2022
LOS ANGELES — Building the nation’s first bullet train, which would connect Los Angeles and San Francisco, was always going to be a formidable technical challenge, pushing through the steep mountains and treacherous seismic faults of Southern California with a series of long tunnels and towering viaducts.
But the design for the nation’s most ambitious infrastructure project was never based on the easiest or most direct route. Instead, the train’s path out of Los Angeles was diverted across a second mountain range to the rapidly growing suburbs of the Mojave Desert – a route whose most salient advantage appeared to be that it ran through the district of a powerful Los Angeles county supervisor.
The dogleg through the desert was only one of several times over the years when the project fell victim to political forces that have added billions of dollars in costs and called into question whether the project can ever be finished.
Now, as the nation embarks on a historic, $1 trillion infrastructure building spree, the tortured effort to build the country’s first high-speed rail system is a case study in how ambitious public works projects can become perilously encumbered by political compromise, unrealistic cost estimates, flawed engineering and a determination to persist on projects that have become, like the crippled financial institutions of 2008, too big to fail.
A review of hundreds of pages of documents, engineering reports, meeting transcripts and interviews with dozens of key political leaders show that the detour through the Mojave Desert was part of a string of decisions that, in hindsight, have seriously impeded the state’s ability to deliver on its promise to create a new way of transporting people in an era of climate change.
Political compromises, the records show, produced difficult and costly routes through the state’s farm belt. They routed the train across a geologically complex mountain pass in the Bay Area. And they dictated that construction would begin in the center of the state, in the agricultural heartland, not at either of the urban ends where tens of millions of potential riders live.
The pros and cons of these routing choices have been debated for years. Only now, though, is it becoming apparent how costly the political choices have been. Collectively, they turned a project that might have been built more quickly and cheaply into a behemoth so expensive that, without a major new source of funding, there is little chance it can ever reach its original goal of connecting California’s two biggest metropolitan areas in two hours and 40 minutes.
When California voters first approved a bond issue for the project in 2008, the rail line was to be completed by 2020, and its cost seemed astronomical at the time – $33 billion – but it was still considered worthwhile as an alternative to the state’s endless web of freeways and the carbon emissions generated in one of the nation’s busiest air corridors.
Fourteen years later, construction is now underway on part of a 171-mile “starter” line connecting a few cities in the middle of California, which has been promised for 2030. But few expect it to make that goal.
Meanwhile, costs have continued to escalate. When the California High-Speed Rail Authority issued its new 2022 draft business plan in February, it estimated an ultimate cost as high as $105 billion. Less than three months later, the “final plan” raised the estimate to $113 billion.
The rail authority said it has accelerated the pace of construction on the starter system, but at the current spending rate of $1.8 million a day, according to projections widely used by engineers and project managers, the train could not be completed in this century.
“We would make some different decisions today,” said Tom Richards, a developer from the Central Valley city of Fresno who now chairs the authority. He said project executives have managed to work through the challenges and have a plan that will, for the first time, connect 85 percent of California’s residents with a fast, efficient rail system. “I think it will be successful,” he said.
But there are growing doubts among key Democratic leaders in the Legislature – historically the bullet train’s base of support – and from Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has been cautious about committing new state financing. As of now, there is no identified source of funding for the $100 billion it will take to extend the rail project from the Central Valley to its original goals, Los Angeles and San Francisco, in part because lawmakers, no longer convinced of the bullet train’s viability, have pushed to divert additional funding to regional rail projects.
“There is nothing but problems on the project,” the speaker of the State Assembly, Anthony Rendon, complained recently.
The Times’s review, though, revealed that political deals created serious obstacles in the project from the beginning. Speaking candidly on the subject for the first time, some of the high-speed rail authority’s past leaders say the project may never work.
Unless rail authority managers can improve cost controls and find significant new sources of funding, they said, the project is likely to grind to a halt in future decades.
“I was totally naïve when I took the job,” said Michael Tennenbaum, a former Wall Street investment banker who was the first chairman of the rail authority 20 years ago. “I spent my time and didn’t succeed. I realized the system didn’t work. I just wasn’t smart enough. I don’t know how they can build it now.”
Dan Richard, the longest-serving rail chairman, said starting the project with an early goal of linking Los Angeles and San Francisco was “a strategic mistake.” An initial line between Los Angeles and San Diego, he said, would have made more sense.
And Quentin Kopp, another former rail chairman who earlier served as a state senator and a Superior Court judge, said the system would be running today but for the many bad political decisions that have made it almost impossible to build.
“I don’t think it is an existing project,” he said. “It is a loser.”
The 2-hour, 40-minute Dream
Although it comes more than a half century after Asia and Europe were running successful high-speed rail systems, the bullet train project when it was first proposed in the 1980s was new to America, larger than any single transportation project before it and more costly than even the nation’s biggest state could finance in one step.
The state was warned repeatedly that its plans were too complex. SNCF, the French national railroad, was among bullet train operators from Europe and Japan that came to California in the early 2000s with hopes of getting a contract to help develop the system.
The company’s recommendations for a direct route out of Los Angeles and a focus on moving people between Los Angeles and San Francisco were cast aside, said Dan McNamara, a career project manager for SNCF.
The company pulled out in 2011.
“There were so many things that went wrong,” Mr. McNamara said. “SNCF was very angry. They told the state they were leaving for North Africa, which was less politically dysfunctional. They went to Morocco and helped them build a rail system.”
Morocco’s bullet train started service in 2018.
The goal in California in 2008 was to carry passengers between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2 hours 40 minutes, putting it among the fastest trains in the world in average speed.
The most direct route would have taken the train straight north out of Los Angeles along the Interstate 5 corridor through the Tejon Pass, a route known as “the Grapevine.” Engineers had determined in a “final report” in 1999 that it was the preferred option for the corridor.
But political concerns were lurking in the background. Mike Antonovich, a powerful member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, was among those who argued that the train could get more riders if it diverted through the growing desert communities of Lancaster and Palmdale in his district, north of Los Angeles.
The extra 41 miles to go through Palmdale would increase costs by 16 percent, according to the 1999 report, a difference in today’s costs of as much as $8 billion.
According to interviews with those working on the project at the time, the decision was a result of political horse-trading in which Mr. Antonovich delivered a multi-billion-dollar plum to his constituents.
“I said it was ridiculous,” said Mr. Tennenbaum, the former rail authority chairman. “It was wasteful. It was just another example of added expense.”
The horse-trading in this case involved an influential land developer and major campaign contributor from Los Angeles, Jerry Epstein.
Mr. Epstein, who died in 2019, was a developer in the seaside community of Marina del Rey who, along with other investors, was courting the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for a 40-year lease extension on a huge residential, commercial and boat dock development.
Mr. Epstein was also a member of the rail authority board, and he became a strong backer of Mr. Antonovich’s proposal for a Mojave Desert diversion on the bullet train.
“The Palmdale route was borne of a deal between Epstein and Antonovich, absolutely,” said Art Bauer, the chief staff member on the State Senate Transportation Committee, speaking publicly on the matter for the first time.
“If I get my lease, you get my vote was the deal,” Mr. Bauer said. Though Mr. Epstein was only one member of the board, his lobbying of other board members proved critical, he said. “Epstein got the votes. The staff didn’t get the votes. The staff didn’t want to go that way.”
The desert route “sacrificed travel time and increased the costs,” and opened the door to “a whole series of problems” that have become only clearer as time has gone on, he said. “They betrayed the public with this project.”
A similar assessment was made by Hasan Ikhrata, a former executive director of the Southern California Association of Governments, the giant regional planning agency that helped build powerful support for the bullet train.
The rail route “was not based on technical and financial criteria,” Mr. Ikhrata said.
In a recent interview, Mr. Antonovich, now retired, said there was no connection between Mr. Epstein’s support for the Palmdale route and his own support for the lease extension in Marina del Rey. “Jerry played a role in promoting Palmdale,” he said, but “they were two separate breeds of cat, the Marina and the desert.”
There were plenty of reasons for routing the train through the two desert cities, where more passengers could board, he said, and it was only natural that his constituents would want to see benefits from a bullet train. “We wanted to share all that stuff.”
The dogleg from Burbank to Palmdale was never without advantages. For one thing, said Mr. Richards, the current rail authority chairman, the direct route through the Grapevine would have had higher land acquisition costs and faced opposition by a major landowner. After the decision was made, Mr. Richards said, a follow-up study validated the choice.
But it has presented a complex engineering challenge, requiring 38 miles of tunnels and 16 miles of elevated structures, according to environmental reports.
And it introduced a fundamental conflict that has dogged the project. If the train was to rush passengers between the state’s two urban hubs almost as fast as they could fly, how much speed should be sacrificed by turning it into a milk run across the huge state?
Then came the decision to start building a train between Los Angeles and San Francisco that reached neither city.
A Bullet Train for the Farm Belt
The idea of beginning construction not on either end, but in the middle – in the Central Valley, a place few in Los Angeles would want to go – was a political deal from the start.
Proponents of running the rail through the booming cities of Bakersfield, Fresno and Merced cited a lot of arguments: The Central Valley needed jobs. It would be an ideal location to test equipment. It would be the easiest place to build, because it was mostly open farmland.
But the entire concept depended on yet another costly diversion.
Instead of following Interstate 5 through the uninhabited west end of the valley, the train would travel through the cities on the east side – more passengers, but also more delays, more complications over acquiring land, more environmental problems.
Rail authority leaders said starting the bullet train in the center of the state reflected a decision to make sure it served 85 percent of the residents of California, not just people at the end points. Running it on the east end of the valley, they said, would ensure that it served existing cities; building on empty farmland would encourage new sprawl.
“The key to high-speed rail is to connect as many people as possible,” Mr. Richards said.
The rail authority spokeswoman, Annie Parker, said studies in 2005 showed that building along the east side of the Central Valley provided better and faster service, though it was 6 percent more expensive. In any case, she said, the current route is what voters agreed to in 2008 in a $9 billion bond authorization.
State senators were under pressure to endorse the Central Valley plan, not only from Gov. Jerry Brown but also from President Barack Obama’s transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, who came to the state Capitol to lobby the vote.
The Central Valley quickly became a quagmire. The need for land has quadrupled to more than 2,000 parcels, the largest land take in modern state history, and is still not complete. In many cases, the seizures have involved bitter litigation against well-resourced farmers, whose fields were being split diagonally.
Federal grants of $3.5 billion for what was supposed to be a shovel-ready project pushed the state to prematurely issue the first construction contracts when it lacked any land to build on. It resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in contractor delay claims.
“The consequence of starting in the Central Valley is not having a system,” said Rich Tolmach, who headed the nonprofit California Rail Foundation that promotes public rail transit and was deeply involved in the early days of the project. “It will never be operable.”
Which Path Through the Mountains?
More political debate ensued over what route the train would take into the San Francisco Bay Area. The existing rail corridor through Altamont Pass, near Livermore, was a logical alternative. The French engineering company Setec Ferroviaire reported that the Altamont route would generate more ridership and have fewer environmental impacts.
But as with so many decisions on the project, other considerations won the day. There was heavy lobbying by Silicon Valley business interests and the city of San Jose, which saw the line as an economic boon and a link to lower cost housing in the Central Valley for tech employees. They argued for routing the train over the much higher Pacheco Pass — which would require 15 miles of expensive tunnels.
In 2008, the rail authority issued its record of decision.
“It absolutely has to go through Pacheco and up through San Jose,” Mr. Richards said.
I wish that Democrats would answer my question: Why are Democrats funding student debt forgiveness with money from innocent taxpayers, instead of with money from the fraudulent colleges that sold worthless degrees?
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
September 5, 2022
I’m against student debt forgiveness.
But since it is happening, I have one question:
Why are Democrats funding student debt forgiveness with money from innocent taxpayers, instead of with money from the fraudulent colleges that sold worthless degrees?
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, between 1980 and 2020, regular inflation has caused average prices to increase by 228%.
However, during that same time period, college tuition has increased by 1,184%.
The student debt bailout is paying for hot tubs, spas, rock climbing walls, steaks, and movie theaters.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/caranewlon/2014/07/31/the-college-amenities-arms-race/
Another area where colleges waste money is in the worthless policy known as “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
The Federalist wrote:
“Some universities had strikingly large numbers of people with DEI responsibilities in their job titles. At the University of Michigan, for example, 163 people have formal responsibility for providing DEI programming and services. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has more than 13 times as many people devoted to promoting DEI as providing services to people with disabilities. Georgia Tech has 3.2 times as many DEI staff as it does history professors. The University of Virginia boasts 6.5 DEI staff for every 100 professors.”
The Center Square wrote:
“UC Berkeley employs 150 professionals and 250 additional students dedicated to addressing “systemic inequities,” according to a document obtained this week by The College Fix. The public research institution’s Division of Equity and Inclusion spends $25 million annually to support the 400 full and part-time staff to run diversity and inclusion-related programs, according to the document, an eight-page job description for a new Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion.”
So the real problem isn’t a lack of bailout money.
The real problem is that colleges are spending money on frivolous luxuries that have nothing to do with education, such as hot tubs, spas, rock climbing walls, steaks, and movie theaters, as well as on left wing brainwashing known as “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” with its overbloated budgets to pay huge numbers of employees who job duties have nothing to do with education.
Bailing out student loans doesn’t address these huge wastes of money.
On the contrary.
The bailout only gives colleges an incentive to raise their tuition even more.
I wish that Democrats would answer my question: Why are Democrats funding student debt forgiveness with money from innocent taxpayers, instead of with money from the fraudulent colleges that sold worthless degrees?
Student debt bailout pays for hot tubs, spas, rock climbing walls, steaks, and movie theaters
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
August 26, 2022
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, between 1980 and 2020, regular inflation has caused average prices to increase by 228%. However, during that same time period, college tuition has increased by 1,184%.
Source for image:
And what are colleges doing with all this extra money?
Forbes wrote:
The College Amenities Arms Race
A free movie theater. A 25 person hot tub and spa with a lazy river and whirlpool. A leisure pool with biometric hand scanners for secure entry. A 50 foot climbing wall to make exercise interesting. And a top-of-the-line steak restaurant with free five course meals.
This isn’t a list of items from a resort brochure. They’re facilities you can find on a college campus. And with college construction costs rising, it could be the best four-year getaway you’ve ever had.
In “Country Club as College,” a paper published last year, University of Michigan researchers examined college financial consumption against enrollment.
“We found that the lower ability students and higher income students have a greater willingness to pay for these amenities,” says Brian Jacob, a researcher from the University of Michigan. “The more academic, high achieving students cared about intellectual achievement.”
In other words? Harvard University might not spend approximately $700 million to renovate their campus, but High Point University would. Under the leadership of President Nido Qubein, High Point’s campus has grown into a collegiate theme park, complete with plasma televisions in dorm rooms, a free movie theater, and steak restaurant. And their five-star, country club accommodations have made the percent admitted decline from 86.1% in 2002 to 64.2% in 2012.
The University of Iowa has an estimated $53 million campus recreation center, complete with an 18 foot diving well, bubble benches, and lazy river. Texas Tech University has a veritable water park in their backyard. California State University, Fullerton has a 30 foot rock wall. And California State University, Long Beach has a $70 million wellness center with hand scanners for secure entry.
So the real problem isn’t a lack of bailout money. The real problem is that colleges are spending money on frivolous luxuries that have nothing to do with education.
Bailing out student loans doesn’t address this problem.
On the contrary. The bailout only gives colleges an incentive to raise their tuition even more.
S.F. spends more than $60K per tent at homeless sites. Now it’s being asked for another $15 million for the program.
S.F. spends more than $60K per tent at homeless sites. Now it’s being asked for another $15 million for the program.
By Trisha Thadani
June 24, 2021
San Francisco’s homelessness department is pushing to continue an expensive tent encampment program that it says is crucial for keeping people off the sidewalks, despite its high price tag of more than $60,000 per tent, per year.
The city has six so-called “safe sleeping villages,” where homeless people sleep in tents and also receive three meals a day, around-the-clock security, bathrooms and showers. The city created these sites during the pandemic to quickly get people off crowded sidewalks and into a place where they can socially distance and access basic services.
The program currently costs $18.2 million for about 260 tents. Unlike the city’s homeless hotel program, the tent villages are not eligible for federal reimbursement. Some of the sites have been run by nonprofits Urban Alchemy, Dolores Street Community Services and Larkin Street Youth Services.
The department is now asking the city for $15 million in the upcoming fiscal year for a similar number of tents, which amounts to about $57,000 per tent per year. If the funding is approved, San Francisco will pay about twice the median cost of a one-bedroom apartment for people to sleep in tents for the second year in a row.
The department plans to close some sites this year, but said it will look for new ones to replace them. Officials said they plan to significantly ramp down the program in fiscal year 2022-2023, when it expects to need $5 million to fund the program.
Several supervisors said at a Wednesday budget hearing that the cost must be re-examined, especially as the city winds down its COVID-19 emergency response.
“It is a big deal to have showers and bathrooms, and I don’t dispute that,” Supervisor Hillary Ronen said at Wednesday’s Budget and Finance Appropriations Committee meeting. “But the cost just doesn’t make any sense.”
Gigi Whitley, the homeless department’s deputy director of administration and finance, said the bulk of the costs at the sites come from the 24-hour security, three meals a day, and the rented shower and bathroom facilities.
Whitley said she hopes the department can control costs as it takes over the program from the city’s COVID-19 Command Center.
The tent program is entirely paid for through Proposition C, a 2018 business tax measure that collects money for homeless services. The cost accounts for only a fraction of the more-than $1 billion that the city expects to spend on homelessness over the next two years, mostly due to Prop. C.
Still, Supervisor Ahsha Safaí said it seemed like an “exorbitant” amount for a program that would be phased out as the COVID-19 emergency comes to an end.
The discussion comes as the city prepares to wind down its homeless hotel program, which is currently sheltering about 2,000 people. While the homeless department has promised that every hotel resident will be offered a housing placement, the city is still grappling with a tight housing market and limited shelter options for the thousands on its streets.
Shireen McSpadden, director of the department, said group shelters are still not allowed to operate at full capacity, despite Breed lifting all other COVID-19 restrictions on June 15.
The department said it is still “reviewing” federal shelter health guidelines and waiting on state public health guidance to “finalize the local shelter reopening plan and timeline.” The capacity reductions are significant: For example, there are currently only 91 guests allowed at the 200-bed Navigation Center on the Embarcadero, the department said.
Because of the shelter limitations and the upcoming closure of some hotels, McSpadden said she feels “strongly” that the city should maintain the tent program at its current level.
“We need it as just another tool in our toolkit as we bring people out of the hotels,” she said.
The board’s Budget and Finance Committee will decide whether to approve the proposal next week, before the entire budget moves to the full board for a vote. Then it will return to the mayor for her approval at the end of the summer.
Supervisor Matt Haney, chair of the committee, was also critical of the program’s cost Wednesday. He said the committee will decide next week whether it wants to reduce the money given to the tent sites and “instead direct the funds to other, more cost-effective investments to get people off the streets.”
Here’s a great comparison of government spending to private spending
The government of New York City spent a huge amount of time and money to “fix” this ice skating rink. But at the end, it was no better off than when they started.
Then a private funder came by, and fixed it for real, for far less money, and in far less time.
Having fallen into utter disrepair during the New York City fiscal crisis, unable to make ice, the city’s Parks Department embarked on a total refurbishment of the facility in 1980, estimating it would take two years to complete. After six years and having flushed $13 million down the drain, the city announced they would have to start all over again and it would another two years to complete. Wollman Rink had quite visibly failed. The Wollman Rink fiasco amplified the public perception of the general incompetence of government and their inability to complete even the simplest projects.
Enter the Donald. In late May of 1986, the 39-year-old Trump made an offer to Mayor Ed Koch. Trump would step in and take over the construction and operation of the project for no profit and have it up and running in time for the holiday season. Koch tried mightily and quite sneakily tried to reject Trump’s offer. A very public Trump-Koch feud ensued; Donald ultimately prevailed taking on the responsibility to finish the rink in less than six months for no more than $3 million. The city politicos could only hope that when Donald failed it would divert attention from their own incompetence.
Instead of failing, Trump finished the job in just four months at a final cost 25% below the budget.
Biden administration waves FBI background checks for babysitters who take care of migrant children. Taxpayers are paying $775 per child per day for this babysitting.
US waives FBI checks on caregivers at new migrant facilities
By NOMAAN MERCHANT
March 27, 2021
HOUSTON (AP) — The Biden administration is not requiring FBI fingerprint background checks of caregivers at its rapidly expanding network of emergency sites to hold thousands of immigrant teenagers, alarming child welfare experts who say the waiver compromises safety.
In the rush to get children out of overcrowded and often unsuitable Border Patrol sites, President Joe Biden’s team is turning to a measure used by previous administrations: tent camps, convention centers and other huge facilities operated by private contractors and funded by U.S. Health and Human Services. In March alone, the Biden administration announced it will open eight new emergency sites across the Southwest adding 15,000 new beds, more than doubling the size of its existing system.
These emergency sites don’t have to be licensed by state authorities or provide the same services as permanent HHS facilities. They also cost far more, an estimated $775 per child per day.
And to staff the sites quickly, the Biden administration has waived vetting procedures intended to protect minors from potential harm.
Staff and volunteers directly caring for children at new emergency sites don’t have to undergo FBI fingerprint checks, which use criminal databases not accessible to the public and can overcome someone changing their name or using a false identity. (more…)
Taxpayers Stuck with Bill of $392.69 per Person per Night on Hotels for Illegals Crossing Border
Taxpayers Stuck with Bill of $392.69 per Person per Night on Hotels for Illegals Crossing Border
By Jim Hoft
March 26, 2021
This is infuriating.
Joe Biden and the Democrat majority government are spending $72,000 per person to house illegal aliens and fake refugees in hotels in Texas and Arizona.
The average median household income in America in 2019 was $65,712 per household. And that was before the, before the Fauci lockdowns in 2020.
Via Breitbart.com:
Biden’s Plan to House Illegal Immigrants in Hotels to Cost Taxpayers $72,000 per Border-Crosser: Report
President Joe Biden’s plan to house migrants in United States hotels is set to cost American taxpayers about $72,000 per border crosser awarded a room, analysis details.
This week, the Biden administration announced it awarded a Texas-based nonprofit an $86 million contract to pay for hotel rooms in the U.S. for border crossers. The contract is for six months and will provide rooms to about 1,200 migrant families.
Analysis by former federal immigration judge Andrew Arthur, a fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies, finds the cost to taxpayers is expensive.
Arthur writes at CIS.org:
On March 20, Axios reported that the Biden administration has entered into a six-month contract worth $86 million to house 1,200 migrant family members near the Southwest border in Texas and Arizona. That works out to $71,666.67 per migrant, paid by your tax dollars, meaning that you are now a co-conspirator to one of the largest smuggling schemes in history.
Keep in mind, as the outlet notes, that $86 million is just the beginning, as the contract (“through Endeavors, a Texas-based nonprofit” — I would hate to see the tab if they were in it for the money) “could be extended and expanded”.
Why does the Biden administration need $86 million in hotel space? ICE, which detains adults and adults traveling with children (family units or FMUs), is already using its family residential centers (FRCs) as “rapid-processing centers with the goal of releasing families within 72 hours”. But apparently even with that short turn-around time, the agency is running out of space.
By the way, $71,666.67 divided by six months equals $392.69 per person per night. One night at the AAA-rated three diamond Best Western Plus Laredo Inn & Suites for two adults and two children is $127.49 per night ($111 for AAA members), and includes a free breakfast, refrigerator, and microwave.
What happened to the $100 million Mark Zuckerberg gave to Newark schools?
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mollyhensleyclancy/what-happened-to-zuckerbergs-100-million
What Happened To The $100 Million Mark Zuckerberg Gave To Newark Schools?
October 8, 2015
In her new book The Prize, former Washington Post journalist Dale Russakoff tracks what happened to that $100 million. Christie and Booker, she writes, used Newark schools and the glow of Zuckerberg’s donation as a political tool, then quickly moved on to bigger, better things: for Booker, a Senate seat, for Christie, a presidential campaign.
Tens of millions of dollars were spent far away from classrooms, on things like $1000-a-day consultants… …
$20 million of it was paid to outside consulting firms…
… in a plan scripted by the consultants they decided to send the kids to the next closest school. Which makes sense if you’re looking at a map. But if you’re living in the neighborhood, you know that that park is a haven for drug dealing and gang activity, and you don’t want kids walking through that territory right away. The parents were completely terrified.
Amtrack, the government run passenger rail system, purchases soda for $3.40 per serving, and then resells it to customers for $2.00. Meanwhile, McDonald’s purchases soda for 9 cents per serving, and then resells it to customers for $1.29.
Amtrack, the government run passenger rail system, purchases soda for $3.40 per serving, and then resells it to customers for $2.00. So they are selling it at a loss. The taxpayers make up the difference.
Source: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/amtrak-lost-800m-on-cheeseburgers-and-soda
Meanwhile, McDonald’s purchases soda for 9 cents per serving, and then resells it to customers for $1.29. So they make a profit.
In my opinion, cutting taxes is better than having the government waste the taxpayers’ money.
While Chicago was being looted, this security video from a burglarized office shows 13 police officers and supervisors sleeping, making popcorn, drinking coffee, etc.
While Chicago was being looted, this security video from a burglarized office shows 13 police officers and supervisors sleeping, making popcorn, drinking coffee, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcd7MOG2Km0
And here’s a clip from The Simpsons. This is from the episode “Homer’s Triple Bypass” from season 4.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20mBi8-QsSc
A New D.C. Suburb Bus Stop Should Have Cost $20,000 to Build. Instead, It Cost $1 Million.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/d-c-suburb-bus-stop-130000253.html
A New D.C. Suburb Bus Stop Should Have Cost $20,000 to Build. Instead, It Cost $1 Million.
February 23, 2020
Politicians love infrastructure, but many local government projects seem awfully wasteful. We’ve all seen the questionable spending—the half dozen union guys standing around while one digs, the needless reconstruction of sidewalks, the dangerous bike‐lane schemes on city streets, the empty city buses clogging traffic, and those digital announcement signs on highways with no useful information.
Local governments are flush with cash, and they waste it. Where I live in Virginia, a local government spent $1 million on one bus stop that should have cost $20,000.
Kevin Kosar flagged a news story yesterday about Washington’s terribly mismanaged transit agency. ABC7’s Sam Sweeney found:
Metro has spent $3.8 million and taken five years to build two unfinished bike racks—at East Falls Church and Vienna Metro Stations.
WMATA originally budgeted $600,000 for each rack, but the price tag has soared to $1.9 million each.
The covered bike shelters will house 92 bikes, putting the price tag at more than $20,000 per bike. Future costs to finish the projects could raise that number even higher.
The projects were supposed to be completed in December of 2015 but remain unfinished in 2020.
… In January 2020 signs at the fenced‐off construction site said the project would wrap up in late 2018. After ABC7 aired its story in January, the signs were removed.
San Francisco’s 24-hour public toilets cost the city nearly $30 per flush. Officials want to add more.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/san-franciscos-24-hour-public-131200141.html
San Francisco’s 24-hour public toilets cost the city nearly $30 per flush. Officials want to add more.
* Since 2014, San Francisco has operated a program called “Pit Stop” that delivers mobile public restrooms to neighborhoods with dirty streets.
* In August, the city began offering 24-hour service at three of these stations.
* The cost of operating the stations overnight amounts to $30 per flush.
December 6, 2019
Even toilets are expensive in San Francisco.
Operating three 24-hour public toilets adds $300,000 to the city’s sanitation budget, according to recent city data reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Since 2014, a San Francisco program called “Pit Stop” has been delivering mobile public restrooms to areas where many of the city’s homeless residents live and congregate. In these locations, especially the Tenderloin neighborhood, sidewalks can wind up scattered with human feces.
The Pit Stop program started with restroom stations in just three locations, and it has since grown to include 24 stations across 13 neighborhoods. In addition to giving homeless residents a place to use the restroom, the stations come with used-needle receptacles and dog-waste disposal bins.
But only three locations are open 24 hours. They’re part of a pilot program that began in August and will last until July 2020. The other 21 stations have varying hours: Some are open from 9 a.m to 8 p.m., while others have more limited service.
Most of the additional operating costs for the pilot program goes toward paying staff attendants who help ensure that stalls aren’t misappropriated for drug use or prostitution.
The math works out like this: Thus far, the 24-hour toilets have been used around 10,500 times during the hours between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., when all other Pit Stop stations are closed. About a quarter of all flushes at the 24-hour stations took place at night, which means the overnight toilets cost the city about $30 per flush.
City officials are now considering expanding the pilot to other locations.
Matt Haney, who represents the city’s sixth district (which includes the Tenderloin and SoMa neighborhoods) on the Board of Supervisors, has advocated for keeping all of his district’s stations open 24 hours.
Changing every Pit Stop station in the city to stay open overnight would require more than $8 million, according to the city’s estimate. The city’s annual budget for street cleaning was roughly $72 million in 2019.
So far, however, the three overnight stations haven’t led to a significant reduction in the number of complaints about San Francisco’s dirty streets. The Chronicle reports that the Tenderloin saw just 12 fewer complaints in the last three months compared to the three months before the pilot started. (Complaints in the neighborhood dropped from 188 to 176.)
But Haney told the Chronicle that there’s still a need for the toilets in his district — and probably in nearby districts as well. The Tenderloin and SoMa neighborhoods currently have around 3,700 homeless residents. The total across the city has risen to nearly 10,000.
Government spends nearly $1 million of taxpayers’ money on cancer treatment for illegal alien who had repeatedly raped an 8-year-old child
In my opinion, this is a waste of the taxpayers’ money.
Also, there’s something very unfair about this. If this guy was a law abiding U.S. citizen, instead of an illegal alien who had repeatedly raped a child, I’m wondering if he would be getting this much health care for free.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2018/07/26/utah-county-inmate-was/
A Utah County inmate was headed to trial and possible deportation. Then came his cancer diagnosis and medical bills nearing $1M.
July 27, 2018
Gerardo Valerio-Romero was in Utah County custody, accused of repeatedly sexually abusing an 8-year-old relative, when he was diagnosed with cancer.
The day after the medical determination, the 49-year-old Mexican citizen was in LDS Hospital receiving cancer treatment, marking the start of an ongoing saga that exposed a rift between the county’s sheriff and its commission as well as medical bills that threaten to top $1 million.
Even at a discount, Valerio-Romero’s cancer treatments have drained the county jail’s medical budget. His case is set for trial early next month, and he’s caught the interest of federal immigration officials who will look at possibly deporting him if he’s acquitted. Until then, he’s in Utah’s court system, where his case is stalled and costs from his treatment continue to climb.
Spoiler:
“It’s a Catch-22,” Sheriff Jim Tracy said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement placed a detainer on Valerio-Romero when he was arrested in March 2017, meaning ICE asked to be notified when he was convicted or acquitted on six counts of felony aggravated sexual abuse of a child. (He also faces eight felony charges related to forgery and one count of unlawful possession of another person’s identification.)
“A detainer is basically saying, ‘Hey, listen, when you’re going to be releasing him, let us know so that we can pick this guy up,’” ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok said Wednesday.
Valerio-Romero’s trial has twice been delayed, once last August at the request of prosecutors and again in December, when he asked for a new attorney and rejected a plea deal offered by the state (the details of which haven’t been disclosed).
The defendant has waived his right to a speedy trial, the court docket shows.
His next three-day trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 8. It’s unclear whether he’ll be ready to stand trial. If not, Tracy said, his medical treatment will continue to ring up costs for the county.
Valerio-Romero has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him. Court filings indicate he may have used the name Jesus Melgoza for work and cashing checks. His attorney, Clayton Simms, didn’t respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
The case was catapulted to the public spotlight early this month, when Tracy took the microphone during public comment at a County Commission meeting and announced he is quitting, partially over the inmate’s medical bills. His last day is Aug. 3.
Commissioners said at the time they were caught off guard by Tracy’s abrupt resignation. They said they believed the office could shift money around to cover immediate costs before the commission can meet next month and adjust its budget.
Commissioner Nathan Ivie was also critical of Valerio-Romero, saying he “shouldn’t even be in this country” because of a prior conviction.
Tracy said Valerio-Romero’s previous conviction wasn’t an offense for which he could be deported.
The sheriff said he was frustrated with the county’s funding of his department over the past 10 years. While he said Valerio-Romero’s case isn’t the only reason he’s quitting, he said Wednesday that things came to a head when he asked for emergency budget help from the commission.
He said commissioners will vote early next month — just after his exit — on emergency funding through year’s end.
“The solution to this problem … was adding additional money,” Tracy said. “This guy pops up with a million-dollar [problem], which we don’t even have. That’s why there was the crisis. The solution has always been from Day One you’re going to have to transfer money” to cover medical costs.
“It’s a mess,” he added. “That’s the final straw that broke the back.”
San Francisco spends $37,000 on each homeless person per year. So why are they still homeless?
I just came across this news article from the San Francisco affiliate of NBC News:
San Francisco is slated to spend nearly $280 million this year on housing and services for the homeless — a roughly 40 percent increase compared to just five years ago. Over that same span, however, the number of homeless in the city has largely remained the same at about 7,500 people, according to city counts.
In other words, San Francisco spends $37,000 on each homeless person per year.
So why are they still homeless?
My best guess is that it’s because this spending is more about helping the government bureaucrats and social workers than it is about actually helping the homeless.
Taxpayers billed $1,092 for an official’s two-night stay at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club
There is no excuse for Trump forcing taxpayers to pay for anyone to stay at one of his hotels. There are plenty of other hotels, which are run by independent parties, and which charge much lower rates. Government officials who need to stay in a hotel at taxpayer expense should use those hotels, not Trump’s.
Taxpayers billed $1,092 for an official’s two-night stay at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club
September 15, 2017
The bedroom suites at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, available only to members and their guests, feature hand-painted Moorish ceilings, antique Spanish-tiled mosaics and sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean.
On a weekend in early March, during one of seven trips by Trump and his White House entourage to the posh Palm Beach property since the inauguration, the government paid the Trump-owned club to reserve at least one bedroom for two nights.
The charge, according to a newly disclosed receipt reviewed by The Washington Post, was $1,092.
The amount was based on a per-night price of $546, which, according to the bill, was Mar-a-Lago’s “rack rate,” the hotel industry term for a standard, non-discounted price.
The receipt, which was obtained in recent days by the transparency advocacy group Property of the People and verified by The Post, offers one of the first concrete signs that Trump’s use of Mar-a-Lago as the “Winter White House” has resulted in taxpayer funds flowing directly into the coffers of his private business.
Here are pictures of the 400-square-foot bathroom that cost New York City taxpayers $2 million
http://nypost.com/2017/07/06/councilman-cant-believe-city-spent-2m-on-this-tiny-park-bathroom/
Councilman can’t believe city spent $2M on this tiny park bathroom
July 6, 2017
A Brooklyn councilman is accusing the city of flushing $2 million down the toilet while building a public restroom at a local park.
Democrat David Greenfield told WCBS-TV on Wednesday that it took him 7½ years to get City Hall to repair the formerly run-down Gravesend Park on 18th Avenue.
But the newly refurbished park became a pyrrhic victory for Greenfield when he learned it cost $2 million to build the new, 400-square-foot bathroom facility.
“I’m frustrated that we are essentially wasting taxpayer money,” Greenfield said. “You can build a complete house in six months for $1 million.”
He pointed blame directly at Mayor Bill de Blasio, explaining, “The buck stops with the administration and at the end of the day, if the administration really made this their priority, they could figure out a way to cut the red tape.”
Republican mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis also piled on the administration, saying the project was plagued by “mismanagement.
“You get a feeling in this administration that taxpayer money grows on trees,” she said.
San Francisco forces taxpayers to give $190,000 to drunk driving, illegal alien, because the city reported him to immigration officials
San Francisco To Pay Undocumented Immigrant $190K For Violating Sanctuary Policy
June 28, 2017
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — San Francisco taxpayers could soon pay $190,000 in a lawsuit settlement with an undocumented immigrant who claimed he was reported to federal immigration authorities in violation of the city’s sanctuary city ordinance, the City Attorney’s office confirms to KPIX5.
The settlement is expected to be confirmed by San Francisco supervisors in future hearings.
Pedro Figueroa-Zarceno walked into the police station on December 2, 2015 to recover his stolen car.
When he left the station, he was immediately taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
A document from federal immigration authorities released by his attorneys indicates that a San Francisco police officer directly contacted ICE and told them where to find Figueroa-Zarceno, the man’s attorneys and representatives said Wednesday.
The apparent incident, which led to the two-month detention of Figueroa-Zarceno, could be a violation of Sanctuary City policies placing limits on local law enforcement’s ability to cooperate with immigration officials, according to his attorneys.
Figueroa-Zarceno, a native of El Salvador with a fiancee who is a U.S. citizen and an eight-year-old daughter, was released Wednesday.
Speaking through an interpreter, Figueroa-Zarceno said that once he was at the station he was detained and handcuffed, and told that police needed to ask him questions. No questions were asked, but after a few minutes he was released out a side door, where an ICE agent was waiting outside to detain him.
“I could hear my daughter screaming outside the van, Dad! Dad!” he said. “I could hear her telling them not to take her dad.”
The city approved a Sanctuary City policy in 1989 prohibiting city officials from enforcing immigration laws in most cases as a way to encourage immigrant communities to trust and cooperate with police.
A second 2013 ordinance, Due Process for All, prohibits San Francisco law enforcement from detaining people on behalf of immigration authorities for deportation unless they are wanted for a serious crime.
Figueroa-Zarceno’s attorneys said the ICE document released Friday indicates that the sheriff’s department contacted ICE on Dec. 2 stating that a “final order fugitive” had been contacted by San Francisco police.
At the same time, the document states, a San Francisco police officer contacted the ICE duty officer directly and told him Figueroa-Zarceno was at the police station. He was taken into custody by ICE around half an hour later.
ICE officials confirmed the detention but would not comment on the documents released Friday.
Zachary Nightingale, Figueroa-Zarceno’s attorney, said the document shows that while he served two days for a DUI in 2012, there were no criminal warrants for Figueroa-Zarceno in the system, only a civil deportation order dating back to 2005.
A judge has since reopened Figueroa-Zarceno’s immigration case after finding that the initial order was given without proper notification, and a new hearing is now scheduled for 2019, Nightingale said.
Eileen Hirst, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s department, said a warrant for Figueroa-Zarceno was found in a national criminal database when police ran his name through the system, and the sheriff’s department called ICE to confirm that warrant, as is routinely done with all warrants.
The department did not provide his location to immigration authorities during that call, she said.
Police Sgt. Michael Andraychak said in a statement Friday that then-Police Chief Greg Suhr had informed Mayor Ed Lee that Figueroa-Zarceno “never should have been taken into custody by ICE agents after being released from Southern Police Station.”
“It is the policy of the San Francisco Police Department to foster trust and cooperation with all people of the City and to encourage them to communicate with SFPD officers without fear of inquiry regarding their immigration status,” the statement said.
The department is investigating and if any violations of policies and procedures are found, “there will be serious consequences,” the statement said.
John Coté, a spokesman for the Office of San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said, “San Francisco has strong policies in place to encourage victims and witnesses to report crimes without fear of being deported, which include our sanctuary ordinance. These policies are designed to foster respect and trust between law enforcement and residents to ensure our communities are safe. The City, including the Police Department, remain committed to them.”
Coté said, “This proposed settlement is a fair resolution for all of the parties involved.”
Mayor Lee said he’d spoken with officials at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security about the case last week, and is “pleased” that Figueroa-Zarceno has been released.
Supervisor John Avalos said the incident was an illustration of how collaboration with immigration authorities can erode the trust between the community and local law enforcement.
It also highlighted the increased “politicization” of immigration during the election season, as seen in the national response last year to the fatal shooting of Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco, allegedly by an undocumented immigrant who had been released from custody a short time earlier.
Why are California Democrats against letting union members see how their mandatory union dues are being spent?
In California, the government uses taxpayers’ money to pay a crossing guard to work in an area where pedestrians never actually cross the street, because there is an underground tunnel for them to cross. This job is a concession to unions.
One union member wanted to see how her mandatory union dues were being spent. There was a vote, strictly across party lines, against opening up the union’s books for people to see.
What is in those book that the Democrats are so afraid of letting people see?
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 