John Stossel and the 2 million dollar bathroom.

This is an absurd piece by John Stossel about a 2 million dollar public park bathroom. It is under 5 minutes long and if you like John Stossel, it is just great. He talks about how this bathroom built by the government took 7 years and 2 million dollars to build meanwhile a private company built a bathroom in another nearby park and it only cost 271,000. For context, the Empire state building only took just over a year to build. The official he interviews explains that is because the government uses high quality materials and pays the prevailing wage. All in all I thought it was kind of funny and classic Stossel.



m.youtube.com...

a reply to: Chalcedony

Who ever built it had seven years of Job Security .

People only care about themselves , they don't care that overbidding something and dragging out the contract takes Tax dollars out of all our pockets .

As Long as they get rich screw everyone else , that is the Ideals of modern politics .

in the end we will all look back and wonder what went wrong ?

Stossel once said that there should be 5-foot tall flashing neon signs in the Halls of Congress that say:

IT'S THE TAXPAYERS MONEY! NOT YOURS !

a reply to: ColeYounger

That other building, the one on private land? The term ''renovation'' was used in describing the work done on it at such a low cost.

There is that distinction. When a project is classified''renovation'' it does not need to adhere to all the modern codes but to the codes in place when the original structure was built.

We had a hot tub at our YMCA. It broke down and the maintenance guy said he could fix it. What he attempted to do created a much worse problem, one that could not be fixed as it was. We needed to go to a total rebuild. That took what might have been a simple and inexpensive ''repair'' and well past the ''renovation'' classification and into a ''remodel'' classification.
That classification needed to adhere to all the new codes and upped the cost so much that it took 6 years to come up with the money to do it.

there better be fountains flowing out of mouths of Greek statues

It all depends on where the bathroom is built. Are there water, electric and sewage close enough to tap into? If not then there's the expense of running them. Is it in an area like California, where environmental studies have to be done and citizen's groups to tie it up in Court. Was it a Union job? You can go on and on. Many details all of which add to the cost and the amount of time.

It took the company that I work for two years, just to replace a large transformer. A local University's Environmental Club opposed it, as they oppose everything that is done in the Industrial Park we are in. They kept going on and on about PCB's. They hadn't a clue. The existing transformer had PCB's, the new one didn't. We were actually putting in something that was environmentally friendly. It even had EMI shielding. As a last gasp, they tried to have the project cancelled because of the old transformer's disposal. So they wanted us to keep an inefficient, potentially hazardous and unshielded transformer in place instead of replacing it with an environmentally friendly, efficient shielded one.

I shouldn't have been surprised. These were the same people who called the hazmat team on me for disposing of a hazardous chemical in a sewer. The "hazardous chemical" was distilled water.

That guy who says 3 million bucks is cheap. How does anyone become so delusional? That guy they interviewed has become blind to reality, just think how many people they could have helped feed with the savings if it cost five hundred grand instead for something just as strong. It isn't even pretty looking, it is kind of ugly.

a reply to: rickymouse

It is probably cheap. Why do you have the delusional thought that the extra money should go to feed poor people?

originally posted by: JIMC5499
a reply to: rickymouse

It is probably cheap. Why do you have the delusional thought that the extra money should go to feed poor people?

You are right, it doesn't have to be collected which would help everyone, even the poor. I was just trying to use an example that would hit the hearts of some of the people that think that it is more appropriate to give the poor food than give them opportunity to make a decent living at a job. Better than giving it to the schools when they don't need it though.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire
I could still build a bathroom for less and in about a year. Stop defending wasteful spending.

Likely trashed from methheads by now. They trash all parks and recreations centers eventually even public truck rest areas. I never use any of these facilities, only private ones.

a reply to: Chalcedony

Meh, that's peanuts compared to what went down in my town about 15yrs ago. My city is unfortunately under the jurisdiction of the city of Los Angeles, and nobody can spend money better than them!
Here's what happened: we got a shiny new animal shelter. Yep, a state of the art facility for the cool sum of 35 MILLION DOLLARS. Thirty-five. Million. It's a modest sized building, can hold maybe 80-100 stray animals.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!!
The Grand Opening was set for early September, and when that day arrived it was swelteringly hot. So hot the animals were in distress with no way to cool the place down and they had to cut the ceremony short.
Well, that incident prompted city problem-solvers to contract a cool mist cooling system for all of the kennels. For an additional $180,000. I'm not kidding, somebody made huge money off that project, and it's just one that I know about.

a reply to: Chalcedony

LMAO
7 years?

If the sewer and water lines were already there, me and 5 or 6 of my buddies could have built something like that in a week or 10 days for nowhere near $2 million.

If this isn’t proof of the government wasting our tax dollars, nothing is.

My town built a single room occupancy (SRO) affordable housing complex. By the time they were done, each unit cost about $350,000. Keep in mind, you could buy a fixer upper house in my town for $350k or a nice small condo.

Anyone who has dealt with government bureaucracy knows how inefficient the system is and how most of the people have no accountability. It is about making work for themselves to justify their jobs and rewarding cronies.

You could never build a 100 story building in one year like the Empire State building nowadays.

Its not just the wasteful spending that drives me crazy but the idea that no matter what the cost is some of these officials can't say no. They feel that the need is much greater that the extreme cost of things and they will always try to get the project done rather than killing it because of high cost because once the building is up it is something tangible they can show to people to prove to them that they actually did something. Without these projects they have nothing to show besides stacks of paper they push around their desks or folders full of emails.

I worked in State Government before and after a couple years I had to get out due to the waste and union issues I had to deal with. In my previous job which was involved within the facilities departments. During new construction there had to be a certain percentage of the total build cost set aside to fund local artists. So once the building was built that money was used for sculptures, paintings, etc to fill the hallways etc. The last project was a large science building on an educational campus. We had to pay over $150,000 for a local artist to create a sculpture of molecules that hung from the ceiling. Based on what I saw from the materials used the artist made out like a bandit. There are tons of things like that and environmental items that chew big amounts of money for these public projects. Once you are behind the curtain on this stuff it really makes you sick at how your money is being spent.

a reply to: Charliebrowndog

It is stuff like this why I am always resistant to tax increases. I live in a ultra liberal town with high property taxes. People here are always complaining about the property taxes. However, I always point out that this is what they vote for. They approve every spending referendum and liberal policies.

You guys dont understand the savings here. This was a big project. It took 7 years to complete. It only cost 2 million dollars.

Now look at the horrible cost to time ratio for the Empire State Building. It only took about a year to build, and it cost 40 million dollars. Thats 20 times as much for only a years worth of work.

You should all just be happy we got such a good deal on this project. At least it didnt cost 40 million, and look, its brand new!

a reply to: Chalcedony

Fenton Michigan is rebuilding a gazebo for 60.000 dollars . I would estimate the cost of wood at 8.000 to 10.000 dollars . Nobody uses it so my question would be how much does to cost to tear down .

Likely trashed from methheads by now. They trash all parks and recreations centers eventually even public truck rest areas

a reply to: StupidsecretsEven our nations capitol.