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Redding City Council candidates answer Question 6
We asked the eight Redding City Council candidates to answer one question a week for nine weeks until the Nov. 4 election. Answers appear word-for-word in the order in which they were received.
QUESTION 6
Are there functions of city government
you’d like to see privatized?
Which ones, why and when?
If not, why not?
Dick Dickerson
The only logical reason for privatizing city functions would be for efficiency and or cost savings. If anyone can demonstrate with factual accuracy how to privatize any “City Function” making it more efficient and less costly, I would be willing to consider the proposal.
Gary Cadd
Privatization of city services is sometimes contentious, but there are proven records of success for contracting many individual city services or components when the size or scope does not justify hiring full time city staff. Having a portion of certain functions performed by private vendors also provides a more flexible staffing cushion during periods of economic slowdown and decreased revenue.
Redding already successfully contracts with private vendors for library
operations, animal control and a number of more limited contract functions such as road and bridge construction, data collection and analysis such as when preparing general plans. When you need a particular service done on a one-time basis, it usually makes sense to contract with a business that specializes in that arena and provides the expertise do to the job without obligating limited taxpayer funds to long-term staff commitments. We contract with the Shasta Opportunity Center for many janitorial services at city buildings. There are also some services and functions that are able to utilize the benefit of volunteer labor and external fundraising, such as the library and animal shelter, that allow for a private vendor to partner with the community.
Our city has and will continue to make wise use of contractors and there is always room to investigate other avenues of more efficiently using taxpayer funds while still delivering quality service. I would like to investigate and see a fair cost analysis performed in the area of public works engineering utilizing private firms. Privatization of landscape maintenance for city owned properties and buildings might also be worth considering.
Missy McArthur
First of all, let’s clarify “privatization.” True privatization implies moving from a public owned entity to a privately owned entity. I believe what this question is asking would be more accurately called “outsourcing,” which is a practice used by different companies (or government) to reduce costs by transferring portions of work to outside suppliers rather than completing it internally. A very successful example in our community, which I have been very involved in, is the transfer of the Redding Library management from the County to a private library management firm, LSSI. The library is a public entity and is NOT privately owned, but by having LSSI take over organizing the book collection, human resources, library programs, etc., our community has been able to increase the number of open hours for Redding, Anderson, and Burney, with fewer taxpayer dollars than were needed for the same hours under the government-managed model. In these tough economic times, I would explore ALL options for saving the taxpayer’s money, including “privatization/outsourcing,” in ANY areas which are feasible for holding onto and maximizing the use of our scarce community tax dollars. What/when/why are answers I would seek as a City Council member.
Russell Hunt
The Solid Waste division needs to be eliminated because it loses $1.8 million a year and plans to continue losing money. The private sector can handle this chore.
The convention center loses $1.2 million a year and needs to be sold to the private sector to eliminate this loss.
Currently we have 8 building inspectors with little to do. Instead building inspections should be done by general contractors on a as needed basis.
Abolish the tourism office. Let the California Welcome Center and the Chamber of Commerce do this task.
Park maintenance can be done by county jail inmates just like they do at the Vet’s Cemetery.
The Redding Airport can be placed under private management with emphasis on developing it as a air cargo, airline maintenance and import/export facility. Thus creating numerous jobs.
The Redding Electric Utility needs to be put under private management but left as a publicly owned utility. Employees are being paid excessive wages and under private management will be paid the market rate.
Ken Murray
Privatization is always an option for City services. I am open to any suggestion in this area that offers lower cost to the taxpayer.
The key to privatizing is whether or not the same, similar, or even superior service can be obtained locally for less money. Some services, such as Public Safety, do not lend themselves well to privatization, although there are a few California cities ‘outsourcing’ their Police and/or Fire Protection. Due to our geographic location, those have not been viable options for Redding, and frankly, Public Safety is one area where local government best serves the public interest.
I have supported the privatization of many services currently being used by the City of Redding. Included in those services already privatized, in whole or in part, are janitorial services, plan checking, construction, inspections, design and some landscape maintenance. Although our parks are too big for the majority of the local landscape maintenance companies to service, perhaps we could split them up and bid each park separately, in order to give smaller businesses an opportunity to compete. Privatizing fleet vehicle maintenance could be reviewed again as a potential source of savings. I requested such an analysis in 1995. At that time outsourcing was analyzed by experts for privatization of government operations. The result of the study was that there would be no cost reduction to the City and privatization would have delayed critical turn around times for unscheduled maintenance of Police and Fire vehicles.
As I stated in the opening sentence, I am open to any suggestion that makes sense for the citizens of Redding and anyone with an idea that should be explored should contact me at www.kenmurray2008.com.
Jim McDilda did not respond.
Terry Oxley did not respond.
John Wood did not respond.
Previously:
QUESTION 1
QUESTION 2
QUESTION 3
QUESTION 4
1,140 views
I’m impressed with some very thoughtful and revealing responses.
Thanks for both the question and answers.
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Mr. Hunt, “county” inmates cannot provide the service of park maintenance like the vet’s cemetary. We are the city of Redding, not a county entity. That is something that many people forget. Good answers on the whole from everyone. Thank you for taking the time to participate in this forum. It is very informative about what the candidates know, how much they are willing to research, and their thought processes. I hope Mr. McDilda will take the time to continue to answer since he has done the rest of the questions, and I would be interested in his side on this issue.
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I am liking Mr. Hunt’s ideas a lot. The “same ol’ same ol’” has to be shaken up sometimes to see if it’s really the best idea. Thanks to Ignacious for rightly pointing out that county inmates can’t do the park maintenance. Better to let local landscaping businesses get the work. I, too, am appreciating this forum where all the candidates’ opinions and ideas can be displayed. It’s so helpful.
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I think Mr. Hunt needs to check his facts. The Northern California Veterans Cemetery is operated by the State of California, NOT the County of Shasta and last time I checked, the day to day grounds maintenance is handled by hired staff, although I believe that they could be using CALFIRE inmate crews to clear away brush in undeveloped sections on a as need basis (Look at the overall plan for the NCVC, that place is going to be HUGE!)
Of course, Mr. Hunt would like to eliminate the Redding Police Department in favor of the Shasta County Sheriffs Department and the Redding Fire Department in favor of Shasta County Fire Department/CALFIRE, both of which would prove disastrous if they occurred.
The SCSO is undermanned and understaffed as it is, with barely enough patrol deputies to cover their assigned beats as it is, so tell me how the county would come up with the money to be able to add the necessary deputies to patrol the City of Redding?
Now, regarding the SCFD/CALFIRE…there are a total of 44 stations within the Shasta County Fire Department (Reference: http://www.norcalscan.org/shasta/cdfstations.htm). Out of which, 31 of these stations are classified as volunteer or volunteer/paid (Anderson and the Redding Airport are both Schedule A Departments) which leaves 13 stations staffed by CALFIRE. Out of those 13, there are a few that are only staffed seasonally, unfortunately those numbers are unknown to me at the moment. The point I am making with this is that while this years fire season has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt the outstanding ability of our firefighters here, you simply run into a numbers game.
People become volunteer firefighters because they want to be able to protect the community they live in as well as give something back and they do so at great cost, due to the requirements the State of California requires, such as background investigation, training (Volunteers must meet the same training requirements as a paid firefighter, which is not cheap) and some even have to purchase their own turnout gear. Now, in 2006, the Redding Fire Department responded to 11,698 calls for service (Reference: http://www.ci.redding.ca.us/fire/documents/2006AnnualReport.pdf) This equates to roughly 32 calls per day. Now, my questions to Mr. Hunt are:
1. How do you propose that volunteers and so few CALFIRE personnel would cover all these calls?
2. How would you ensure that the City of Redding would be able to maintain it’s current ISO rating of 3 under a SCFD covered city?
3. Again, much like SO, how do you think the County and State would be able to cover the costs of this plan?
The simple fact is, someone is going to have to pay for all the extra personnel, training, etc. Mr. Hunt is basically pawning off this cost to an already financially overburdened county and state. If you do not, and anticipate covering the city with existing resources, response times will quadruple, crime will skyrocket and inevitably you’re gonna lose lives as a result.
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One wants to save money, not cost more in a different manner.
Missy McArthur: She wants contractors to do the building inspections. I think that is asking the foxes to guard the hen house. If the inspections are underworked, then for heavens sake, put them out onto another job or lay them off.
Russell Hunt. Now that is crazy to put out the Redding Electric to private operators. That was PG&E! But, mainly, R.E. makes money! Good heavens, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water!
Ken Murry: In 1995, he requested an outsourcing for fleet vehicles maintenance. Well, goodness, that was 13 years ago. What happened? Having been in business some years ago, if you have a contract with a company or city, you know you do them first. What happens is your other customers wait.
Dick Dickerson: My goodness, he would consider, if a good report came back on privatizing. Why would that take more than saying a resounding, “Yes!”
To ones who didn’t take the opportunity to answer Kelly’s question, shame on them!
Oh, well, little will change for the better no matter who is voted into office. Too bad. I’m not trying to sound sarcastic, but maybe just plain disguested with the way all goverments are run. We, as responsible citizens, can’t run our houses the way government is run. Too often, those who are elected it isn’t their money, but ours they are spending and wasting too often.
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Whoa; Russel Hunt must be on a ‘Lets destroy everything’ kick. Russel you need to step back a couple of miles and really look at what your saying, especially with the building inspectors. We have enough shoddy work being done without giving the contractors a free hand to do their own inspections. As for selling the convention center, just go down to the Bay Area where some nut case talked San Jose, Cupertino and Santa Clara into doing just that. Now they aren’t getting the income from the centers and the public is (those that can afford it) are paying 3 to 5 times as much to see the same shows.
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I hope whoever is elected that they do the right thing; and by all means, let’s save money. If it works, keep it.
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After reading all of the candidates responses, it appears that Ms. McAuthur and Mr. Murray and on the right track. When a workable and viable option are presented then they both are obviously interested in examining and weighing the options.
As I have mentioned in prior comments, there is definitely a case for privatization of the power generation side of the REU. Having been in this industry for most of my adult life, and working in the capacity of Supervision and Management I feel that I can honestly make this statement. Of the entire budget of the City of Redding, the power generation division(including debt service,spare parts inventory,wages including large amounts of frivolous overtime, and the exceedingly poor management) equates to approximately 30% of the total expenditure. Even though it has been presented that the REU earns approx. $600,000.00 a month on average(net), it still has not been explained by the present and past Council members how and when the REU became a revenue producing entity instead of a utility for the people. The last I knew the City was a Municipality, not a “for profit” business. The only justification for all of the revenue that has been generated since the power generation division began in 1994(approx. $80,000,000.00) has been to increase the size of the power project to justify higher wages and more high paying jobs. It cannot be proven that the spending of millions of dollars on new generators and huge amounts of money on natural gas has “saved” the citizens money on their bills.
My point is this. The Council can request that the Puchasing Dept. analyze and send out an “RFQ” to potential power engineering and operations firms asking for a cost to operate all of our projects. Based on my past experience they would likely receive several quotes that would be considerably less than what the citizens of Redding are paying the Supervision, Operations and Maintenance personnel at this time(salaries,benefits, and retirement). There are multiple companies that do nothing but operate, maintain, and manage power generation projects here and abroad, and do it for much less than we are currently paying. They can be held to task by including in the operating agreement that all costs above and beyond general operating expenses be requested and ok’d by the Council, thus allowing the Council to be more informed and involved with the on-going expenditures related to the projects. I think they would be very surprized by the decreased costs as compared to what has been spent for the last 10 years.
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Ginny, you have misquoted me. Please re-read my answer. Thank you.
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thank you, Ms. Greenberg, for presenting candidate responses to pertinent questions in a concise on-line forum.
I was not impressed by your columns in the local newspaper. I thougt your writing jejune and your view point and topics insular. I only liked two of your articles, the one about construction of the storage warehouse obscuring the river view, and Maggdalena’s Flourless Chocolate Cake, which I have yet to try but I recognized immediately as being good eats.
Just so you know, I’m not impressed by the local paper either.
Thank you so much for giving voters a source of information on the candidate’s platforms!
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Does anobody else think the “Utility Insider” is a disgruntled EX employee with alot of time on his hands?
Who else would want the City to privatize the electric department!
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As a matter of fact EIEIoHNo, I am a retired REU employee and yes I do have time on my hands. When I was still at the utility, I made no bones about the fact that the Director and Assistant Director were spending your tax dollars on projects that were ill conceived and poorly planned. For these comments, I sacrificed advancement and was not well liked by some at the department. It is now that I can speak for the ratepayers and rebutt what so many of the City Council and REU employees don’t want the regular folks of Redding to hear. Hopefully some of what I have said will somehow peak the interest of the new Council(and a few of the old) and hopefully they will look into the issues I have raised.
I am not disgruntled, just concerned that you are all being mislead into believing we need all of this power generation and the huge cost associated with it.
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The generation is needed….some now and some in the future. What is sorely needed is reconstruction of the poorly designed distribution system.
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To the REU’s credit they have an ongoing review and upgrade program for all of the approx. 500 miles of distribution and sub-transmission lines that feed our city for several years now.We are also fortunate to have some of the very best qualified System Operations personnel in the country to monitor, switch, and distribute the energy we use. It is primarily due to those folks that we enjoy the less expensive energy and dependable service that we have come to expect.
If all of the generation that has been built at the Clear Creek site is needed so badly, perhaps someone at the REU (or EIEIoHNo) could explain why Unit 1 gas turbine has less than 200 hours on it since being installed in 1994 at the cost of $12 million? And the new Unit 5 Combine Cycle unit that was put in service in 2002, at the cost of $48 million, has been operated an average of less than 7 months a year since it was put into commercial service? The true answer is that the Power Purchasing Group and “Real Time” Operations staff can normally buy energy cheaper from the hydroelectric projects on the Columbia River system than we can generate it,period. Rarely, if ever,do we need the high dollar energy that sits idle along with the operations personnel who have little to do until they get that occasional call.
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