Posted on 06/27/2014 9:14:16 PM PDT by TigerClaws
Sandy Springs, Georgia may look like any other town in America. It has parks, roads, and beautiful places to live. But there’s one thing that separates this town from every other town: Sandy Springs privatized almost everything.
In 2005, Sandy Springs outsourced almost all functions of the city government (with the exception of police and fire) to a single company, which runs the town. That company is in charge of running all the vital functions of government, from the running the parks, to paving the roads, and even 911 calls!
The town is run very efficiently, with zero backlogs in permit requests. Call the city, and you’ll be surprised to find that you actually get a friendly person on the other line! The city has a 24/7 non-automated customer service hotline which fields about 6,000 calls per month. It also has a state of the art traffic system with cameras and a high tech command center.
(Excerpt) Read more at isil.org ...
“Not sure I’d want police to be, but you could just do without and contract with the Sheriff.”
Be careful turning the LEO stuff over to the sheriff. Our town does that, and as a consequence we get cops who are “rotating through” and many have adopted the LEO tactics of other areas of the county where there is substantial crime. We have a nice up-scale town with big-city cops. No thanks, the city next door just cancelled their contract with the Sheriff and set up their own department for just the reasons I stated. The contract may save you money, but you may not get the quality enforcement you expect.
About half the cost of a similarly sized town with a standard municipal structure, apparently.
Because there is a profit motive, a private company will ALWAYS be more efficient than a government.
There is one thing I can say about a typical Fire Department, and it will probably be seen as controversial. I don’t mean to demean anyone by saying it, it’s just an observation.
Fire Depts have a lifesaving function and they have a property-damage mitigation function.
The lifesaving function is of course important.
As for the property-damage mitigation function; in the overwhelming majority of cases, the cost of maintaining and staffing the FD is much, much greater than the property they can actually save.
If only the lifesaving function could be isolated and optimized; it’s a heck of a lot cheaper to let stuff burn than to maintain a FD to put it out.
true
Read about how this corporation was created. This is way better in its function and design than anything else that your government monopoly does
What. makes you think it isn’t? It has been functioning very well for nearly a decade
lol. I’ll post this story to the mayors facebook page.
BAD call. BAD move.
Privatization means the corporation is answerable to no one. The problem isn’t government, it’s a liberal government. Corporations are not subject to the will of the voters. Privatized police forces may not afford you the same constitutional protections.
Privatization is a cash grab disaster.
Do some reading about public-private partnerships. This is a good model for how things can be done.
Yes, it certainly has.
Since government by its natur is a monopoly and controls everything in terms of services, I a am all for the outsourcing of those services. I live near Sandy Springs ( sort of) and it is a terrific place
most “public-private partnerships” are corrupt bad ideas.
You don’t know what you are talking about
Tell GeronL... He is a Texan and has no clue
This is certainly no problem...Put the contracts up for bid every year. Running government departments is not complex and people running it have no business making life long careers out of it.
This is a huge part of the problem with the corrupt running govenrment at ALL levels, as it exists now.
Privatization is the answer to several things:
1. Government waste
2. Government monopoly
3. Public unions
4. Out of control expenses
5. Political favors
6. And.....most of all the inability to fire anyone.
However, to privatize everything to a single company is extremely dangerous. The reasons are obvious.
That reason is lack of competition.
This will come around to “bite the citizens on the ass” when they have no pressure to apply in the name of “market forces.”
If the police force were privatized I would bet that these killings of dogs would almost cease (except where truly warranted) since private companies are more responsive to the citizenry than government is.
——Who in city government was the owner related to?-—
In a city manager governed city, the CM could establish a corporation and then transfer tasks to the corporation by contract.
I lived in SS for 5 years. Before that, downtown Atlanta for 10.
Most of the comments so far prove that few read the article; and none have actually been there nor understand why SS exists in the first place. It used to be part of Atlanta.
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