Article by Nick K in the newspaper today.
On the blog we have been begging the City for four years to put an RFP out on the entire airport to either 1) long-term lease or 2) outright sell ORH. In fact I meant with then Chairman of the Airport Commission some three (or was it four) years ago to explain privatization and he asked me to submit a letter to the board, which I did. It was blown off because IMG said that there would be no suitors. How they knew that without ever putting out an RFP never made sense to me.
Councilor Petty the bid on Chicago Midway is not the first example of airport privatization. In 1999, Stewart Airport in Newburgh was leased out for 99 years to National Express, a Eurpoean company, at an up front cost of $35 and a percentage of the annual sales. National Express has completely turned the airport around and has resold the remaining years of the lease to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
MassPort has been a great partner and savior for ORH the past ten years, but 18 months we have been negotiating this sale. Maybe we need to open up the process to all buyers, like Avports who have already expressed an interest, by condusting an RFP. That said, why do we need to hire someone to do the RFP.
In closing, this is good news but it should have started five years ago.
Same Time Next Year
-
It’s been nearly a year since I wrote about the problems that come from
having 11 bosses who are not on the same page about anything, as well as
suggestion...
4 months ago
6 comments:
When are we going to start leasing (contracting out/privatizing) school custodial services? This has been suggested time & again by the Resarch Bureau and the suggestion continues to fall on deaf ears. Maybe the new superintendant will see things differently when the school dept budget takes a hit on the money it receives from Washington & Boston. This unspoken notion that many of these city jobs are untouchable has to end. There is no reason the taxpayers s/b paying the kind of money we do for cleaning services when teh wages in the private sector for these services is soo much lessplus all the bennies we hand out, too.
Then there's always the fire dept, too. I mean the services this dept provides, contary to the baloney we read in the paper, are not rocket science. Only problem is state law says city FF'ers have to be municipal 'eees. This is the law taxpayers s/b going after along with similar foolishness, like the Prevailing Wage law. This FF'er law is an unfunded mandate from the state to the city that basically insulates FF'ing services from the competitve market place. This notion of warm bodies chillin' in a fire station for hours at a time has to change. Does anyone know any other jobs where beds are provided for the employeees and where the deamnd for one of the services they perform has dropped 90% since 1995...to the point that only 3.5% of their calls are to structure fires. Calling these jobs Firefighting is like calling me a chauffuer b/c 3.5% of my working hours are spent driving a car
Bill...you were ahead of the curve with National Express and Avports...keep up the good work!
Harry T
Worcester, Ma
Where do the 56 school principals in Worc get off thinking they should have any input into who the next CEO of public schools is.
If St Gobain had (or has?) 56 plants worldwide, does anyone think that the 56 plant mamgers would have a say or any input into the who is the next St Gobain CEO.
Good God, these public sector employees never cease to amaze me.............pull that crap in a private sector job and you'll be made to walk the unemployment plank.
Any chance some of these 56 principals are merely political insiders appointed by the good ole boy network on Irving St? If you dont like your new boss, find a new job like the rest of us have to do.
Dam....does this school dept. need a good shake up.....starting w/privatized custodial services.....and maybe a few new principals.....and maybe some 12th graders who can at least pass a 10th Grade MCAS exam. Imagine sending your kid to school for 12 grade years and only requiring him to pass a 10th grade level exam to graduate. Talk about being a few marbles shy of a dozen.
August airport minutes now on-line
Follow-up article in today's T&G on last night's Council meeting taking this subject up and their endorsing the proposal - http://www.telegram.com/article/20081008/NEWS/810080533/1008/NEWS02
I agree leasing is agreat idea.......esp if it reduces the city payroll via employee reductions............if they are just transferred then mission isnt accomplished .......will council lose backbone when city union eee's are let go as a result of leasing ???
I was surprised to learn that lessees will have to pay real est. (or pers. prop. tax??) on leased assets. If so this just reduces teh amt the lesseee will be able to pay for the leased asset...the notion that this prop. tax money is found revenue to the city IN ADDITION to the lease payment is wrong.
Too bad we leased the land on Beacon St where main south CDC built about a dozen duplex townhouses for $50 a month to the people who own the houses that sit on the leased land. Why the bargain lease amt?? $50 a month is bargain to lease a 4000 sq ft lot. Do these lessees have to pay property tax on the land they lease........if not then why shouuld a business have to?
This is clearly not the time to be going into the RFP mnarket for leasing city assets.....but it s goof time to get teh ball rolling so all the ducks are lined up when things turn around in the real est. market.
I hate to have to ask.....what happenns if these RFP's yield no where near the amt of money the city thinks it's going to get for a one time infusion...............THE AUD for example?
Hey did anyone see the legals in T&G yesterdays. & today ? City commecning legal actions against wayward absentee landlords.....I could compose an identical legal advertisemnt and adddreess it to city hall re: the condition of THE AUD....and I aint even seen the inside of the place!!!!!!!.......talk about the pot calling the kettle black.........WTH ?????
Maybe Wormtown Jeff should take a few photos and post them...........and/or list out out all the sanitary code violations that he sees. Imagine if Jeff kept his cab in the same condition the THE AUD is in?.........they'd pull the hackney license. I mean a year or so ago we had a dead body in there days or weeks before anyone even knew it. At that point inspectores should have come down on the building and cited the city.
Post a Comment