I realize, intellectually, that some central group needs to be "in charge" of projects and things that benefit the masses. Even though I know that my road would be way better than yours, it doesn't make sense that we all build our own little parts of the whole - some jerk would just let their part of the road go to seed, and then we'd all end up with bent wheels.
But what the hell were we thinking when we gave our MONEY to some elected and appointed "officials" that have their own agendas.
There is NEVER enough money to do things right, but there is ALWAYS enough money to do things over.
My case in point is the GREAT SEATTLE TOILET SCANDAL OF 2004 - 2008.
These FIVE little gems cost the city one million dollars ($1,000,000) EACH! And that's just the procurement cost. It doesn't take into account the installation and maintenance of these public potties...not to mention their removal and the restoration of the public sites that they were installed in.
Who would have thought that a locking room in the middle of the poorest (and sadly, higher crime) areas in the city would ever be used for illicit activity? OMG! Drug deals? Prostitution? Surely, these down-trodden citizens would celebrate the generosity of our city fathers! I cannot fathom it!
Others did though.
And in what is increasingly becoming the norm, these toilets that were put there for altruistic (and sanitary/health) reasons, were abused and broken and generally destroyed by the population they were supposed to "serve". These toilets cleaned themselves too...awesome - unless you got caught inside during a cleaning I guess. But instead, they vandalized and broke and plugged it all up. Made filthy messes beyond the ability of said RoboPotties to clean on their own. Although I doubt it was the prostitutes...i mean, who wants to work in a toilet? uhmmmm... I mean a filthy toilet? whatever...
The powers that be decided that their little experiment in treating the homeless and small bladdered people of Seattle should come to an end - especially when maintenance costs FAR exceeded the expectations of those same PTB's. So, they decided to put them up for auction on eBay. Starting bid was $89K per toilet (a seriously good deal they thought, considering they were into them for nearly $2M each at this point). They photographed and listed all the beauty and luxury of RoboPotty[ they sang it's praises. They posted their auction and sat back with excitement. Surely, someone would take advantage of such a fine deal and bail them out of this mess with a little bit of face saving.
They had NOT ONE BID.
I KNOW! I know...you are SHOCKED, as am I.
They then decided to relist them with no minimum bid. GUESS WHAT?! At that price, they had some takers. Over 100 folks bid for a chance at one of those fine automated toilets. One guy won them all...and paid (sit down now, this is astonishing).
$12,000 for the five!
Wooeee, Greg! Them's real cash! American dollars! Or maybe PalPal dollars in which case, there's a fee (oh, and from eBay too). I imagine they netted less than $10K for the lot...
Hell, I can't even go on, I'm depressing myself...
And we wonder why we have potholes the size of vdub bugs (HEY! now there's a use for those toilets...just use them to plug up the holes! )
I am wondering if Canada has as generous property laws as we do...it's getting damn scary in these here parts...
M&G
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