Posted on 07/17/2005 10:09:13 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Last week, Orange County Register readers were treated to one of those small stories that says volumes about government officials, their priorities, and the way they constantly waste your tax dollars to promote their own well-being and their own agendas.
Often it's the small examples that tell big stories, which is why the public yawns when the government wastes billions of dollars, but gets outraged when, say, a city council member names a park after himself, or when the Navy spends $1,000 for a toilet seat.
The public appears outraged at Orange County Sanitation District General Manager Blake Anderson after the Register printed a front-page article titled, "O.C. has joined the sewage of enlightenment." Reporter Teri Sforza details the sanitation district's $570,000 expenditure in a little more than three yearsto a management consultant who specializes in imbuing workplaces with what can fairly be described as New Age spirituality.
This is unusual stuff. Moneywise, the $15,000 a month is a drop in the toilet compared to the other ways the sewer district wastes money. The Register Editorial Page has written extensively about the sewer agency's approval of a $270 million to $400 million project to subject all sewage to another level of treatment, known as secondary treatment.
Advocates for secondary treatment argued it was necessary to protect beachgoers at Huntington Beach in particular from future beach closings. Right after the vote, scientists largely confirmed what we and others had argued: beach contamination was most likely the result of urban runoff, not the sewage plume.
That colossal waste of ratepayer dollars is harder to get a handle on than whooshing public dollars down the sewer to pay for a management guru who helps companies find their "corporate soul."
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
That is sooooooo California. Why is anyone surprised?
Steve is good but I have never seen anything change due to his writing.
urgh, anyone have a username/password?
looks like a keeper. Any people say the 'libertarian philosphy' of privatising such things is crazy... lol
ping
try http://bugmenot.com/
cranium
seethe
thank you. My favorite part:
"I find the same old story line.
The government agencies charged with their particular task a) fail to perform that task competently; b) demand more money from the public so that they can perform said tasks; c) promptly spend the money on increased pensions, salaries, consulting fees, building new administration buildings and in ways that advance the bureaucracy.
Yet public officials think that the latest reform or new infusion of cash or new leadership will change things. The agencies get more money, but nothing much ever really changes."
This author 'gets it'.
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