Government as a Barrier to... Everything
I have had experience on several occasions attempting to bring private solutions (at no cost to the city government) to certain municipal problems. The general approach to such offers, which seems to be similar in every city I have lived in, is to get together a meeting of every single government authority that could possibly have some tangential jurisdiction over the particular problem (e.g, city, county, state, highways, parks, water, environment, etc. etc.). In this meeting, the discussion goes around the table, with every single participant adding another reason why the proposal is a problem and/or another roadblock or required approval. This is not an exaggeration - I can't remember one person in such a meeting try to fix a problem or make something happen. Everyone in government has an incentive system, it seems, that revolves around avoiding risk and preventing change.
That is why I know that this story is typical of government, not an aberration:
LSU hospital officials began planning for a temporary network of neighborhood clinics in early November 2005, barely two months after Hurricane Katrina knocked Charity Hospital out of commission and threw health-care services for many of the city's uninsured into disarray.
Eight months later, in late June and early July, FEMA delivered the trailers to New Orleans, with the $761,000 bill picked up by the federal government.
It wasn't until last week that the New Orleans City Council agreed to temporarily waive the city's zoning code to allow the trailers to be located at six schools around the city -- three on the east bank and three in Algiers -- for two years.
In between fell more than 100 meetings and dozens of e-mails about the issue involving LSU executives and officials at the city, state and federal levels. And the journey is not over. The zoning waivers still need approval from Mayor Ray Nagin, which cannot occur until next week at the earliest, as well as permits from the city that could take up to six months to acquire.
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