4 ms·

Hence, it should be a publicly owned utility like water.

by crushcrashcrush 8y ago

jedmeyers 8y ago
How would it help to lower the costs?
- dahdum 8y ago
  It won't at all, but never going to happen. Legislators know full well this will happen again, they need a "bad guy" or they'll take the heat themselves.
gscott 8y ago
The roads of San Diego are full of potholes. Leaking water lines are causing sinkholes. School fountains had high level of lead for years until a dog wouldn't drink water put into a bowl and an interested teacher started looking into why. Government has too many funding priorities not to mention Government contracts do not come in under time and budget.
- enraged_camel 8y ago
  Well yes, it turns out you can’t burden a local government with something unless you increase taxes sufficiently to pay for that thing.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Even if there's still sufficient taxes government organizations can behave badly. There's no incentive to fear the government making you accountable if you are also the government so you can be sure that a) is highly unlikely to happen and b) the taxpayers are the ones ultimatly on the hook. Making your utility state run risks the the same "not our money" and "what are they gonna do, fire the whole department" issues that cause police department to hire trigger-happy jerks who kill people and leave the town with the bill.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > There's no incentive to fear the government making you accountable if you are also the government True for the US federal government, less true for US state governments, and pretty much not at all true for governments subordinate to US state governments, for reasons which should be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer. > Making your utility state run risks the the same "not our money" and "what are they gonna do, fire the whole department" issues that cause police department to hire trigger-happy jerks who kill people and leave the town with the bill. I think you have misattributed the cause; the cause of that (where it is endemic rather than an error that the department really is trying to avoid but sometimes failing) is that the voting citizens actually want trigger-happy jerks in the police department (because they largely see the police department as a weapon aimed at oeople they dislike) and the bills that they get stuck with as a result are insufficient to dissuade them from that preference (this is helped because local taxes that pay for those bills tend to be weighted away from the local voting population, whether by being regressive—leveraging the income/political participation correlation—or by sweeping local-activity by non-locsl residents into its base.) But even privileged political elites probably want their electric utility to function VB reliably and not burn down wide swathes of the state.
      - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
        >True for the US federal government, less true for US state governments, Disagree fully, especially in one party states. In the federal government if you department is perpetually crap there's always a risk some senator will make cleaning you up their shtick. In state government unacceptable performance seems to be tolerated and allowed to continue indefinitely.
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        > Disagree fully, especially in one party states. The risk for state governments (particularly after the passage of—or, more precisely, after the courts started giving effect to the due process clause of—the 14th Amendment, though this wasn't entirely absent previously) is that they will be held accountable by the federal government. > In the federal government if you department is perpetually crap there's always a risk some senator will make cleaning you up their shtick. That's also true in state government. > In state government unacceptable performance seems to be tolerated and allowed to continue indefinitely. I think that what you are really saying is that there are states whw ere the participating electorate has different standards for what is acceptable, or at least important, than you do, no different from a commercial market where the mass of actively participating customers don't share your priorities.
- jonny_eh 8y ago
  Are you saying a private company would do a better job at finding lead poisoning in water?
- edmundsauto 8y ago
  Is it your hypothesis that San Diego would be run better if only it had better civic leadership? Or that a private entity, with the exact same budget and legislative constrains would do better? Because those problems you listed sound like money problems, which in California makes me think of Prop 13 as the likely culprit.
toast0 8y ago
Private water companies are definitely an option (for example, the San Jose Water Company provides the water utility for much of the city of San Jose). I've yet to hear of a non-government sewer though (outside of individual and small group septic)

Hence, it should be a publicly owned utility like water.

jedmeyers 8y ago

How would it help to lower the costs?

dahdum 8y ago
It won't at all, but never going to happen. Legislators know full well this will happen again, they need a "bad guy" or they'll take the heat themselves.

gscott 8y ago

The roads of San Diego are full of potholes. Leaking water lines are causing sinkholes. School fountains had high level of lead for years until a dog wouldn't drink water put into a bowl and an interested teacher started looking into why. Government has too many funding priorities not to mention Government contracts do not come in under time and budget.

enraged_camel 8y ago
Well yes, it turns out you can’t burden a local government with something unless you increase taxes sufficiently to pay for that thing.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Even if there's still sufficient taxes government organizations can behave badly. There's no incentive to fear the government making you accountable if you are also the government so you can be sure that a) is highly unlikely to happen and b) the taxpayers are the ones ultimatly on the hook. Making your utility state run risks the the same "not our money" and "what are they gonna do, fire the whole department" issues that cause police department to hire trigger-happy jerks who kill people and leave the town with the bill.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > There's no incentive to fear the government making you accountable if you are also the government True for the US federal government, less true for US state governments, and pretty much not at all true for governments subordinate to US state governments, for reasons which should be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer. > Making your utility state run risks the the same "not our money" and "what are they gonna do, fire the whole department" issues that cause police department to hire trigger-happy jerks who kill people and leave the town with the bill. I think you have misattributed the cause; the cause of that (where it is endemic rather than an error that the department really is trying to avoid but sometimes failing) is that the voting citizens actually want trigger-happy jerks in the police department (because they largely see the police department as a weapon aimed at oeople they dislike) and the bills that they get stuck with as a result are insufficient to dissuade them from that preference (this is helped because local taxes that pay for those bills tend to be weighted away from the local voting population, whether by being regressive—leveraging the income/political participation correlation—or by sweeping local-activity by non-locsl residents into its base.) But even privileged political elites probably want their electric utility to function VB reliably and not burn down wide swathes of the state.
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      >True for the US federal government, less true for US state governments, Disagree fully, especially in one party states. In the federal government if you department is perpetually crap there's always a risk some senator will make cleaning you up their shtick. In state government unacceptable performance seems to be tolerated and allowed to continue indefinitely.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > Disagree fully, especially in one party states. The risk for state governments (particularly after the passage of—or, more precisely, after the courts started giving effect to the due process clause of—the 14th Amendment, though this wasn't entirely absent previously) is that they will be held accountable by the federal government. > In the federal government if you department is perpetually crap there's always a risk some senator will make cleaning you up their shtick. That's also true in state government. > In state government unacceptable performance seems to be tolerated and allowed to continue indefinitely. I think that what you are really saying is that there are states whw ere the participating electorate has different standards for what is acceptable, or at least important, than you do, no different from a commercial market where the mass of actively participating customers don't share your priorities.
jonny_eh 8y ago
Are you saying a private company would do a better job at finding lead poisoning in water?
edmundsauto 8y ago
Is it your hypothesis that San Diego would be run better if only it had better civic leadership? Or that a private entity, with the exact same budget and legislative constrains would do better? Because those problems you listed sound like money problems, which in California makes me think of Prop 13 as the likely culprit.

toast0 8y ago

Private water companies are definitely an option (for example, the San Jose Water Company provides the water utility for much of the city of San Jose). I've yet to hear of a non-government sewer though (outside of individual and small group septic)