Why a SLO park restroom can cost $250,000

In the August 28 issue of New Times, the article Government and waste, by Patrick Howe, begins:

How much is too much for a city to pay, at a time when money is tight, to replace a public restroom with another that’s essentially the same? Is $100,000 too much? Is $200,000 too much?

Brett Cross has an answer. He says plans by the City of San Luis Obispo to replace two well-worn restroom buildings in Laguna Lake Park for a combined price of about $500,000, are akin to, well, flushing the money down the drain.

“This is insane,” said Cross, a Laguna Lake resident. He said he’s been seeking improvements to the park for years, but fears this sort of spending will eat up whatever else might have been otherwise available.

“How in the world can a bathroom cost $250,000 to build?” he wondered.

Insane? Yes it is.  And, I’m surprised that the New Times actually explains in the article just why it is so expensive.  You see, government projects must pay “prevailing wage,” or union scale wages.  It’s not like when an individual sends a project out to bid and selects one of the lower costs bidders. No, our government must only entertain bids from companies with union workers. The difference in cost can be astounding.

The city is also going to be replacing a restroom in Santa Rosa Park, at a cost of $300,000.

Why not just leave the restrooms as they are?  Blame the American Disabilities Act (ADA), enacted by that closet liberal George H. W. Bush.  You know the ADA, that same law that serial suer Jarek Molski used to attack hundreds of restaurants, including a string in our own county. Well, the ADA says we have to replace them.

All this in an environment where the city of San Luis Obispo is going to have to pay millions of dollars out to police employees, resulting from an arbitration decision.  Oh, I sense a common theme here, another union.

So, let’s see–we’ve got restrooms mandated by an ADA law gone wild, we have to pay over-the-market wages (in a buyer’s market, by the way) because of a government law designed to help union workers, and the city is strapped for cash because union-backed, government employees (police) have extracted more money from us.

If you are a democrat, you cannot complain about runaway costs like these. It’s your support for unions, “fair wages,” and too large of safety nets that is a direct cause of these runaway expenses.

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