Wasting tax dollars: Part I

[hifigator]

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080717/...eattle_toilets


When someone first told me about this, I thought it was a joke, but appartently it's not. Who in the world ever thought this was going to be a good idea to begin with? Oh well, $5 million down the drain -- literally.


On EDIT:

For some reason the link didn't work. Here is the article:

Seattle sells 5 of its troubled toilets on eBay 1 hour, 32 minutes ago



SEATTLE - Seattle's five problem-plagued public toilets could be yours if you're flush.



City officials decided to pull the plug on the multimillion-dollar self-cleaning toilet stalls and instead put them on the auction site eBay.

Starting bids are $89,000 apiece.

Neighbors and city-commissioned analysts said the unisex facilities attracted drug users and prostitutes, and were less cost-effective than regular public restrooms.

On May 19, the City Council voted to remove the problem toilets. Council President Richard Conlin said although people were using the high-tech, self-cleaning silver stalls, they also fostered illegal behavior, such as prostitution and drug use.

The German-made automatic, high-tech toilets were installed in 2004 and have cost the city about $5 million. Each has handsfree washing and drying ability and an emergency button that automatically dials 911.

The automated doors on the impact- and graffiti-resistant toilets will close Aug. 1, said Andy Ryan, a spokesman for Seattle Public Utilities. The auction will last for 10 days.

As of Thursday morning, none of the toilets had received any bids.

[hifigator]

Here is the full link:

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080717/ap_on_fe_st/odd_seattle_toilets

[Coast2CoastHoya]

Why is this a waste of money? They tried something out, it didn't work like they hoped, and now they're trying to recoup their investment. If the voters of Seattle don't like it, they can vote for new councilors.

Sure beats the BILLIONS directly wasted and TRILLIONS indirectly wasted by invading a country on false pretenses.

[hifigator]

Why is it a waste of money?

5 toilets at cool million a piece and you ask me why? As for your second point, it is entirely unrelated to the initial point. If you want to argue that it wasn't a waste of money to "invest" in these million dollar toilets then please do, but to support your position because there is money being spent somewhere else that you don't agree with is totally bogus.

[seattlehoya11]

2 Questions hifi:

1. If this happened in, say, Charleston, SC would you have posted it?

2. If the story was about how successful the toilets were, would you have posted it?

Honestly this is a funny story, but if it's your grand example of wasted tax money, you need to check you frame of reference.

[hifigator]

Jul 18, 2008 15:45:40 GMT -5 seattlehoya11 said:

2 Questions hifi:

1. If this happened in, say, Charleston, SC would you have posted it?

2. If the story was about how successful the toilets were, would you have posted it?

Honestly this is a funny story, but if it's your grand example of wasted tax money, you need to check you frame of reference.

Those questions are fair enough. As for the first one, I really didn't even pay much attention to where the story was. I did notice it was in Seattle, but that played no bearing whatsoever as to my posting it. Would I have posted it from Charleston for example? Absolutely. I would have posted it from my very own Gainesville for that matter. Come to think of it, this is the exact kind of nonsense they routinely come up with anyway.

As for the second question: if it had been a success (and I don't see how. I mean, how exactly is million dollar toilet defined as being successful? "Man, you should see some of the dumps I took in there ...." ) seriously though, if it had been a success, I probably never would have seen the story in the first place.

But to the underlying premise that I can't or don't acknowledge when ideas from the liberal kooks running the cities actually work, I would counter with this example:

A few years back, Chicago had some plan with some heavy and ornate ceramic/porcelain animals decorating the streets. Our city commissioners decided to mimic the idea, but using Gators instead. I think Chicago used bears, but I'm not positive. In any case, these very decorative Gators would be scattered around town and would each have a unique theme. One was dressed as a Pizza delivery driver, another as a soldier, another as a cowboy-Gator etc... I think these were costing about $10,000 each. I criticized the idea as a waste of money. As it turns out, I was wrong. After 1 year of being on display, they auctioned the Gators off and received more money than they spent on the project. To this day I stand corrected and have had no problem admitting as much. If the bids start rolling in for these toilets, then I will be just as happy to admit my error again. But somehow I don't think I will have to worry about it.


Just curious of 2 things:

1. Did you ever use/see any of the toilets?

2. Why do you think I would have something against Seattle anyway?

[Cambridge]

They exist in San Francisco. We call them shooting galleries.

[SFHoya99]

Self-cleaning toilets are pretty common in some cities. Considering that they have their own walls, etc., and that they should need less labor to maintain and clean, it's not the worst idea ever. People throw around numbers without ever doing the math on the alternative.

Of course, if you don't want public restrooms at all, that's different.