Why didn’t they open up the bids? My firm would’ve been willing to do that toilet for only $1.45 million and get it done within 18 months. Because we are go-getters
/s
San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet
31–40 of 832 posts
Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where's the corruption here? If you set up a system of regulation where a building a toilet costs 1.7M and then building a toilet costs 1.7M, that seems like inefficiency not corruption. I'm open to being proven wrong here but it seems like this statement needs to be justified.
People that think like you interest me. Exactly how much would someone have to move against you before you simply stopped them and said this is enough regardless of evidence? Like would you die instead of fight back if it came to it? Were your parents extremely well off? I don't see how one can make it through life without being wary of the bad intent other people can have without some sort of caretaker that will bai…
You are just making wild assumptions about my belief system. This is bordering on incoherent
Can you point to where I say any of this is good or show any sign of support for any of it?
Were your parent's uneducated? I don't see how you could make it through life with this level of reading comprehension.
Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet
#33The biggest problem in America: Things are inexplicably extremely expensive, especially if government is involved and nobody can give a straight answer as to why.
It's pretty explicable. Our entire economic system is based on the premise that we should off shore the production of things to other places who are willing to deal with the nitty gritty and get it done at a price Americans can afford and then we regulate and enforce wages that ensure that those activities are prohibitively onerous and expensive to be done in the USA. This is literally by design. It's great for multi…
This can't be the explanation, because the US has never offshored construction. You can't offshore construction. It's a service business that requires being on-site.
Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty explicable. Our entire economic system is based on the premise that we should off shore the production of things to other places who are willing to deal with the nitty gritty and get it done at a price Americans can afford and then we regulate and enforce wages that ensure that those activities are prohibitively onerous and expensive to be done in the USA. This is literally by design. It's great for multi…
This can't be the explanation, because the US has never offshored construction. You can't offshore construction. It's a service business that requires being on-site.
Right, and this a big part of the reason that houses are prohibitively expensive. If you could offshore them they'd be affordable.
Americans can't afford to buy things made by Americans.
Again we papered over this issue with decades of supressed interest rates but the ruse can't last forever.
Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet
#35Meanwhile, in Florida: https://twitter.com/MyFDOT/status/1582832749681201152 California is a failed experiment.
Meanwhile in Florida https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/interactive-see-after-p... You can find failed/failing/failing to implement infrastructure in every state in the US, it’s a national issue
Counterpoint: California residents would've blocked the Condo development using CEQA and it'd be a hybrid parking lot/homeless encampment. Checkmate indeed.
It's a good thing the Millennium Tower is still standing.
Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meanwhile in Florida https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/interactive-see-after-p... You can find failed/failing/failing to implement infrastructure in every state in the US, it’s a national issue
Counterpoint: California residents would've blocked the Condo development using CEQA and it'd be a hybrid parking lot/homeless encampment. Checkmate indeed. It's a good thing the Millennium Tower is still standing.
It’s not really a counterpoint when every place is fucked. I’m saying this from region that did the last mega engineering project in the US (the big dig) and that was even 20 years ago. We are one of the best areas for approving infrastructure projects and we still don’t approve enough to support the areas needs.
It is a national problem
Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Getting a contractor to work on your home is ridiculously expensive too. The other day I paid $900 to replace a faucet for my tub.
Couldn't you do it yourself? It's typically a relatively simple job, no need to get a contractor in. The tools to replace it, if you don't have them already, would have come in at a fraction of $900.
I could and I will moving forward. My wife ended up paying him when I was at work and she had no idea what it was supposed to cost.
Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
> since it's the government doing the building shouldn't that not really be a "cost", order the department to waive any fees. This assumes that the cost is due to fees imposed by the government. From the article: >> [The costs] include planning, drawing, permits, reviews and public outreach. >> we expect to be able to complete [the toilet] in 2025
It couldn't cost more than say 200k (and that is pretty crazy the article says the plumbing hookups are there it's not like they have to dig up a city block to run a sewer line or something) to actually build the thing so we are talking what? A million and a half in illustration, planning and review for a single toilet?
I don't have any special insight here but, in other cases, environmental reviews and environmental lawsuits are tools used to stifle new developments.
> a rejected San Francisco apartment complex...required a more than 1,110-page environmental assessment [1]
It is not socially acceptable to charge a million dollar permit for constructing a toilet. It is socially acceptable to make the process so onerous that it costs more than a million dollars to complete. Think of the environment.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-04-20/the-landm...
Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet
#39Is there a cost breakdown of what goes into an estimate like this? The 1.7 million number comes from somewhere, so how was it calculated, what parts of the process result in it being so high? Cost of labor for doing the actual job, materials, administrative salaries for the planning and regulatory hurdles? Surely that exists somewhere, and so if this is corruption seeing such a document should make it more obvious wh…
This highlights one of my personal favourite ways to attack this problem, itemised cost breakdowns.
If they were required by law to keep sufficiently detailed account of the government money they are using, and while making these public by default might be hard to convince people of (due to obvious questions about commercial in confidence information)… just requiring them to exist as government records of the project opens a pathway for the existing FOI processes to grant access to these for public inspection when it’s in the public interest.
I really struggle to image how a FOI request to produce the itemised cost documentation of the 1.7 million dollar public toilet, might possibly not be in the public interest.
Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet
#40I think things in SF have gotten well past the point where people should believe that it's mere inefficiency, and start calling it what it is: corruption. This money is being embezzled, used as political favors, or otherwise misappropriated. There will be a story about a wasteful process, of course, some budget paperwork, and excuses. But unless a detective looks closely at the books, those excuses will probably be l…
Where's the corruption here? If you set up a system of regulation where a building a toilet costs 1.7M and then building a toilet costs 1.7M, that seems like inefficiency not corruption. I'm open to being proven wrong here but it seems like this statement needs to be justified.
Ironically it would be cheaper if it were corrupted. People involved would actually be interested in cost cutting.