This is nothing, my friend. You’ve made me want to tell my own story, but I musn’t. I’d be arrested. Not because of anything done wrong, but as a menace to the peace.
I will explain that both your problem and mine are due to the same basic issue; otherwise competent people don’t want the job. Township supervisors where I live are paid $1,500 per year. The only reasons anyone would want the job would be 1) to do a service to the community or 2) have power over others.
We have three supervisors and one is a total, everlasting jerk that no one likes. He is deliberate in his authoritarian trespasses on persons he doesn’t like, which is everyone. The road crew hates him, the sewer plant operators hate him, the cops hate him.
That known and expressed, is it any wonder that agencies and departments at the federal level have been weaponized?
>>"the township decided it was going to take over garbage collection, collecting extra taxes and using the money to hire a third party company to do the work based on competitive bidding. As it turns out, they have received exactly one bid, from Co. A."
I laughed hard enough to pee a little.
This outcome was the whole idea in the first place. System working as intended.
Here's what I guess happened based on many such cases: Co. B was annoying to A but probably wasn't scalable enough to replace A across the whole township as things were (given that they didn't submit a bid when trash collection went public). A is aware of the endless complaints but has no meaningful competition so Golf Foxtrot Yankee.
Next is the middle thing, which I can't guess with high certainty because a few extremely common practices would get this same outcome so here are a couple of closely-related guesses:
1) A was already in a corrupt relationship with the township doing business there in the first place, so local pol C gets in touch with A and says "what would it take for you to suck less" and A says "I want that ass 24/7 exclusive and you have to wear that thing I like" and then it basically becomes a rap video with bottles of Hennessy and hot tubs and stuff.
2) There isn't a preexisting corrupt relationship with A, so local pol C decides the best way to fix things is to start one. He (because let's face it) calls up A and says "hey, if I let you put on a ring on this, will you stop treating us like dog shit?" and A says "sure, craft an open bid with <conditions> and accept <amount> and we will stop slapping you in the face before we finish" and then it basically becomes abuse porno or maybe another rap video.
I think some variation of one of these two happens/happened, and then the final phase, A gets the contract, no competition whatsoever until the contract comes up for renewal but by then B will have stopped scaling up in that area (because there's now no reason to) or maybe gone away completely, they get paid a lot more because it's now YOUR money, service is maybe better for 5 minutes and then regresses to mean.
See also immigration policy and US labor relations for the past roughly 150 years (and note that labor, when the left did not dominate the Fed, used to be anti-immigration and is now pro-immigration). You can apply the same story as above except maybe change one of the sex metaphors to a Dirty Sanchez for a little racist humor.
1. As Co. A was the problem to begin with, why didn’t they explicitly bar them from submitting a bid?
- I don't know about the laws in your state, but in most states, the local governments are severely restricted by state rules about how they can bid out contracts and purchases.
- one way to find out would be to ask the person who is in charge of the bidding process (maybe a public works director, or a City Manager - but somebody on the city's staff handled this thing, and they should be able to explain why it was done the way it was)
- [I don't see any indication from your post that you asked though.]
2. If the bylaws prevented them from barring particular companies from submitting a bid, why didn’t the council make sure other companies would be bidding before deciding on this course of action?
- again, the state's rules may not allow the City to manipulate the bidding process in that way. Usually, recruiting bidders will open a city up to criticism that they were biased in their selection. (i.e., "Of course you picked Company D, you asked them to bid! It's obvious that you wanted them. This whole process is rigged!" You know, like that.)
- If you'd found the person in charge of the bidding process, you could have asked them this question, too.
- You also could have called Co. B to find out why they didn't bid. If the well-run company doesn't bid, it could be that they were excluded; but it could also be that they had a perfectly good business reason for not wanting the contract.
3. If it wasn’t simply gross incompetence that led to this situation, who got payed by Co. A to ensure that the company got a monopoly on trash collection?
- If your city hasn't actually awarded Co. A a contract, then:
a) Co. A doesn't have a monopoly on trash collection
b) Nobody got "played" [at least not that anyone can say for sure, yet]
- The fact that you jump to "gross incompetence" and "who got played" in (what appears to me, from your writing here) the absence of any real evidence, says more about you than it does about your city's process.
When’s the next election?
- I don't know, but you should run for office. I guarantee that winning a city council seat would be the eye-opener of your lifetime.
Where did those buckets of tar and feathers get to?
- When you find them, keep them handy. Your neighbors may be asking for them, someday.
Look Doc, I don't want to come off as critical here, but I like reading your stuff because I like the fact that there's real thinking going on. I like the way you analyze issues.
In this case, though, your reaction isn't really evincing your usual rigor. It's like you checked your intellectual tool-kit at the door.
PS - if I'm wrong about you not asking someone at the City about the bidding process let me know. That would warrant a different response than I've given here.
Hilarious. I often thought that this combination of daddy state and pseudo-free-market is the worst of it all and a recipe for mayhem and cronyism. Seen it many times. I mean, if you gonna do the daddy thing, at least own it: provide the service yourself as a communal department. At least then people know where to go with their pitch forks, they can vote, stir up trouble in the local press without those responsible shifting blame to bylaws and contractors etc. Where I live (rural, commie France) garbage retrieval and organization is the best I've ever seen.
As I was reading, before I got to the conclusion, I was like, what is the problem here, this is what government does. Yes?
I actually have a piece in the works, about how they don't even bother with a scapegoat anymore.
This is nothing, my friend. You’ve made me want to tell my own story, but I musn’t. I’d be arrested. Not because of anything done wrong, but as a menace to the peace.
I will explain that both your problem and mine are due to the same basic issue; otherwise competent people don’t want the job. Township supervisors where I live are paid $1,500 per year. The only reasons anyone would want the job would be 1) to do a service to the community or 2) have power over others.
We have three supervisors and one is a total, everlasting jerk that no one likes. He is deliberate in his authoritarian trespasses on persons he doesn’t like, which is everyone. The road crew hates him, the sewer plant operators hate him, the cops hate him.
That known and expressed, is it any wonder that agencies and departments at the federal level have been weaponized?
>>"the township decided it was going to take over garbage collection, collecting extra taxes and using the money to hire a third party company to do the work based on competitive bidding. As it turns out, they have received exactly one bid, from Co. A."
I laughed hard enough to pee a little.
This outcome was the whole idea in the first place. System working as intended.
Here's what I guess happened based on many such cases: Co. B was annoying to A but probably wasn't scalable enough to replace A across the whole township as things were (given that they didn't submit a bid when trash collection went public). A is aware of the endless complaints but has no meaningful competition so Golf Foxtrot Yankee.
Next is the middle thing, which I can't guess with high certainty because a few extremely common practices would get this same outcome so here are a couple of closely-related guesses:
1) A was already in a corrupt relationship with the township doing business there in the first place, so local pol C gets in touch with A and says "what would it take for you to suck less" and A says "I want that ass 24/7 exclusive and you have to wear that thing I like" and then it basically becomes a rap video with bottles of Hennessy and hot tubs and stuff.
2) There isn't a preexisting corrupt relationship with A, so local pol C decides the best way to fix things is to start one. He (because let's face it) calls up A and says "hey, if I let you put on a ring on this, will you stop treating us like dog shit?" and A says "sure, craft an open bid with <conditions> and accept <amount> and we will stop slapping you in the face before we finish" and then it basically becomes abuse porno or maybe another rap video.
I think some variation of one of these two happens/happened, and then the final phase, A gets the contract, no competition whatsoever until the contract comes up for renewal but by then B will have stopped scaling up in that area (because there's now no reason to) or maybe gone away completely, they get paid a lot more because it's now YOUR money, service is maybe better for 5 minutes and then regresses to mean.
See also immigration policy and US labor relations for the past roughly 150 years (and note that labor, when the left did not dominate the Fed, used to be anti-immigration and is now pro-immigration). You can apply the same story as above except maybe change one of the sex metaphors to a Dirty Sanchez for a little racist humor.
Hey Doc, let's tackle your questions:
1. As Co. A was the problem to begin with, why didn’t they explicitly bar them from submitting a bid?
- I don't know about the laws in your state, but in most states, the local governments are severely restricted by state rules about how they can bid out contracts and purchases.
- one way to find out would be to ask the person who is in charge of the bidding process (maybe a public works director, or a City Manager - but somebody on the city's staff handled this thing, and they should be able to explain why it was done the way it was)
- [I don't see any indication from your post that you asked though.]
2. If the bylaws prevented them from barring particular companies from submitting a bid, why didn’t the council make sure other companies would be bidding before deciding on this course of action?
- again, the state's rules may not allow the City to manipulate the bidding process in that way. Usually, recruiting bidders will open a city up to criticism that they were biased in their selection. (i.e., "Of course you picked Company D, you asked them to bid! It's obvious that you wanted them. This whole process is rigged!" You know, like that.)
- If you'd found the person in charge of the bidding process, you could have asked them this question, too.
- You also could have called Co. B to find out why they didn't bid. If the well-run company doesn't bid, it could be that they were excluded; but it could also be that they had a perfectly good business reason for not wanting the contract.
3. If it wasn’t simply gross incompetence that led to this situation, who got payed by Co. A to ensure that the company got a monopoly on trash collection?
- If your city hasn't actually awarded Co. A a contract, then:
a) Co. A doesn't have a monopoly on trash collection
b) Nobody got "played" [at least not that anyone can say for sure, yet]
- The fact that you jump to "gross incompetence" and "who got played" in (what appears to me, from your writing here) the absence of any real evidence, says more about you than it does about your city's process.
When’s the next election?
- I don't know, but you should run for office. I guarantee that winning a city council seat would be the eye-opener of your lifetime.
Where did those buckets of tar and feathers get to?
- When you find them, keep them handy. Your neighbors may be asking for them, someday.
Look Doc, I don't want to come off as critical here, but I like reading your stuff because I like the fact that there's real thinking going on. I like the way you analyze issues.
In this case, though, your reaction isn't really evincing your usual rigor. It's like you checked your intellectual tool-kit at the door.
PS - if I'm wrong about you not asking someone at the City about the bidding process let me know. That would warrant a different response than I've given here.
Hilarious. I often thought that this combination of daddy state and pseudo-free-market is the worst of it all and a recipe for mayhem and cronyism. Seen it many times. I mean, if you gonna do the daddy thing, at least own it: provide the service yourself as a communal department. At least then people know where to go with their pitch forks, they can vote, stir up trouble in the local press without those responsible shifting blame to bylaws and contractors etc. Where I live (rural, commie France) garbage retrieval and organization is the best I've ever seen.
Q: "What should local government do when consumer surplus is less than it could be?"
No taxpayer ever:
All local governments: "Eliminate all consumer surplus entirely."