BELT AND SUSPENDERS GUYS: CLASH OF THE CONSERVATIVE TITANS
I first heard the phrase “belts and suspenders” in the 1970 movie Once Upon a Time in the West. Henry Fonda, who played a hired gunman “Frank” asked: “How can you trust a man who wears a belt and suspenders? Man can’t even trust his own pants.” A more recent definition of a Belt and Suspenders Guy is found on www.urbandictionary.com. The first definition is: “A man who goes to great lengths to avoid risk, embarrassment or exposure, i.e., if the belt should break, the suspenders will keep his pants on. Not quite paranoid, but on his way there. Can also be said of a man with something to hide (or less than something, as the case may be).” It’s all about redundancy. In the engineering profession, belts and suspenders would be considered a redundant support system if the two devices were employed simultaneously to support the same pair of trousers. For the modest person the redundancy of wearing a belt and a pair of suspenders is pretty important. In the American vernacular, being a “belt and suspenders guy” has come to connote a conservative philosophy. Personally, I don’t simultaneously employ belts and suspenders in my daily attire. I prefer to wear thick leather belts. Belts are convenient for attaching my Leatherman pocket knife case, which contains a tool of moderate personal value. The belt also holds up my trousers, which has some value in terms of dignity, but not as much value as my Leatherman tool. I cannot claim to be a belt and suspenders guy in the purest form of the term. But, that doesn’t make me less conservative. As I see it, redundancy costs money. A conservative approach to spending money on redundant systems is a business approach. The conservative person weighs the cost of buying redundancy (e.g., a color-coordinated belt-suspenders set) against the probability of system failure times the value of the potential loss. Being conservative means spending the right amount of money to mitigate the right amount of risk. In the material world of the average person, Murphy’s Law is a constant. In the world of public infrastructure, Murphy’s Law becomes a multiplier: if a system can fail, the magnitude of the failure will be larger if more people are using the system. The failure of the I-35W Bridge in Minneapolis this summer is a case in point. Had sufficient redundant support been added to the bridge system during initial construction, and had maintenance repairs be undertaken in a timely manner, the accident would not have happened. Saving a buck for the Minnesota DOT probably wasn’t the first thing that crossed the minds of hundreds of motorists who found themselves plunging 100-feet into the Mississippi River on August 1, 2007. In the engineering profession, we would say that somebody wasn’t conservative in their design and maintenance of the bridge system. There weren’t enough “belts and suspenders” to support the trousers in this case. Most of Tuesday night’s meeting of the Green Cove Springs City Council was about my proposal to fund critical infrastructure needs by borrowing money. It wound up being a clash of conservative titans, each arguing the righteousness of their own brand of conservative credentials with respect to our responsibilities to protect the health, safety and welfare of the public. Engineers are not necessarily titans, but they are conservative by the nature of their profession. The engineers invited to the meeting made their conservative argument in favor of redundant systems for the water, wastewater and electric systems in the City to support a growing population. These professionals stated the City needed new water wells yesterday and would need additional high-service pumping within two-to-three years. The engineers stated that it would take 18 to 24 months to construct the system if we got started today. These are redundant systems—if a well or a pump fails, there should be a back up well and a backup pump already installed. The cost of an entire City getting sick from bad water is far greater than the cost of new wells and pumps. Therefore, spending money to make improvements is justified and fiscally responsible. It is conservative. The electrical engineers, who reported to the Council earlier in the year, gave a more bleak evaluation of the electric distribution system (although it was somewhat rosier than the evaluation of the system provided by the last electrical engineers, who were fired shortly after releasing their bleak report earlier in the decade). In a very nice way, the electrical engineers told the City that they were way exceeding the safe capacity of the system. Kind of like plugging in too many extension cords into a single wall receptacle. Sooner or later you either throw a breaker (if you’re lucky) or burn down the house (if you’re not). The electrical engineers politely said it was urgent to remedy the situation. Mr. Conservative Values weighed in with his own conservative approach to infrastructure management. Mr. Conservative Values cruised into the Council meeting in his Corvette and told the Council that the conservative approach to infrastructure funding was to place a moratorium on using the City's credit worthiness to fund the projects immediately. Instead he urged the City to get in line for a government hand-out in the form of a grant. I am not opposed to grants. Lord knows I’ve snagged millions of dollars in grant funding for utility projects in this City and throughout Northeast Florida. If standing in line to get on the government dole is a core conservative value, then I’ve got to be one of the most right-wing guys in Clay County. Mr. Fiscal Responsibility was not to be outdone by Mr. Conservative Values. Mr. Fiscal Responsibility touted his conservative approach, echoing the same lines as his friend, Mr. Conservative Values. However, Mr. Fiscal Responsibility threw in a nine-year resume of “fiscally responsible” project construction. You’ve got to know Mr. Fiscal Responsibility (and be somewhat of a nerd) to really appreciate the significance of his resume, but let me give it a try. Take a simple sidewalk project for example. Mr. Fiscal Responsibility doesn’t just build sidewalks with 3000 psi concrete, like most people. Mr. Fiscal Responsibility adds an additional 25 pounds of steel rebar to each square yard of concrete, which nearly quintuples the price of the sidewalk project. Granted, steel rebar adds redundant strength to 3000 psi concrete, whether you need it or not. For pedestrian sidewalk purposes, 3000 psi concrete is pretty strong—it’s capable of supporting the factored live load weight of an 8650-pound man. It is a very conservative assumption that someday an 8651 pound man will go skipping along the City sidewalks and break the concrete. Adding steel to the concrete makes it that much stronger. For example, if you were to see an 8651 pound terrorist skipping along the City sidewalks with two pounds of C-4 explosive and a detonator strapped around his waist 36 inches above the sidewalks, you could probably burrow under the City sidewalk which is reinforced with #5 rebar and survive the blast. That is, provided you could dig fast enough to escape the 26,400 feet-per-second gas expansion rate at the instant of detonation. Mr. Fiscal Responsibility makes some pretty conservative design assumptions on the projects he actually completes. Whether or not it is fiscally responsible to construct sidewalks at five times the market rate depends on whether or not you believe that the 8651-pound terrorist scenario could happen to you or your loved ones. City Council chamber was also graced with the presence of Mr. Belt and Suspenders Guy who didn’t arrive in a Corvette, but did boast the same conservative horsepower as his friend Mr. Conservative Values and Mr. Fiscal Responsibility. Mr. Belt and Suspenders Guy opposes investment in the utilities. His conservative solution is to sell the assets rather than to invest and reinvigorate, which is consistent with the risk-adverse philosophy of a belt and suspenders man. Mr. Belt and Suspenders Guy has the aptitude to be a salesman. It would be nice if he aspired become a Jack Welch or Jeffery Immelt (Ex CEO and CEO of General Electric) who preach a conservative gospel of disciplined, diligent, long-term focus on safe and reliable investments. The problem with the public infrastructure approach of Mssrs. Conservative Values, Fiscal Responsibility, and Belt and Suspenders Guy is lack of redundancy. Mr. Fiscal Responsibility claims there is a secret plan to complete all the projects in three or four years without borrowing money. The plan is not in writing, but it must depend largely on grants, since somebody in the City frittered away all the financial reserves building over-designed sidewalks, etc. There is no certainty of getting a grant 10 months from now when the Governor signs the next budget. There is no backup plan to get the water projects funded, constructed, and operational within 14-to-26 months after a grant request is approved or rejected by the State Legislature and the Governor. It takes some time to order equipment and to build this kind of infrastructure. Mssrs. Conservative Values, Fiscal Responsibility and Belt and Suspenders Guy make some pretty liberal assumptions for supposedly conservative guys. At the end of the day, boasting conservative credentials means very little when the health safety and welfare of real people depend on critical government services and infrastructure. Ideology doesn’t keep my drinking water safe or keep the beer cold in the refrigerator. Wise investment does. Who made any sense on Tuesday night? Only my wheel-chair bound friend who hangs out at Starbucks and who doesn’t get paid to come to nearly every City Council meeting: “Let’s quit talking and get these projects done”. Amen Related: mkelter's blog | login or register to post comments | printer friendly version | Tags: Community News for Green Cove Springs
Submitted by semiredneck on Fri, 09/21/2007 - 1:29pm.
Thank you for the post. It was informative, and, it's good to know if I survive Armageddon, I can go to GCS and have sidewlaks for walking. Your post does open the question, what projects will be done in the near future? That is always grist for good conversation.
Submitted by Baxley on Fri, 09/21/2007 - 9:06pm.
1st - what Marsha said. She's always so elegant; I concur. 2nd - though the idea has never occurred to me, now, I will never wear both belt & suspenders, no matter how conservative I think I am. 3rd - I applaud your willingness to expose yourself to flogging from the blogging - especially as an elected official - and think we all gain from you explaining your logic. I am not a GCS citizen either, but appreciate reading about the goings on there. Good luck swimming upstream.
Submitted by OneMann on Sat, 09/22/2007 - 8:30am.
Government by parable. I like it a lot. Some industrious civics teachers ought to steal it (even claim credit for themselves) to start what could be a very education classroom discussion. As far as belts or suspenders, Mike, I'm afraid I've reached that point in the typical male aging process where the part of my anatomy that used to follow me around and help hold up my jeans without any assistance is not-so-slowly disappearing. Belts that would have been fashion accessories a decade ago are now just tools of modesty. Gotta pull 'em tight, too, which is a little irritating to that area when the six pack has been replaced by a two-liter. Suspenders? A female friend of mine told me I couldn't wear them anymore, as long as I was single and didn't want to slam the door on the possibility of meeting someone special. I learned a long time ago to trust a woman's fashion sense far more than my own.
Submitted by mkelter on Sat, 09/22/2007 - 10:40am.
I appreciate the input I get from the blogging community. I especially appreciate Baxley’s clever play on words about exposing myself to flogging from blogging. We all risk exposing ourselves when we remove our belts and suspenders. We can only hope that we don’t get flogged with our own redundant trouser supports. Ouch! Marsha is right (as usually the case): An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and procrastination will eat you alive. Absolutely true. It’s also true that everybody has a boss and people do what the boss checks up on. Mr. City Manager has a boss named Mr. & Ms. City Council. Mr. & Ms. City Council have a boss named Mr. & Ms. Voter. If Mr. & Ms. City Council don’t do their job, they can get fired by Mr. & Ms. Voter by a simple majority vote. If Mr. City Manager doesn’t do his job, he can get fired by Mr. & Ms. City Council with a supermajority vote. Three of Mr. City Manager’s former bosses, Mr. Mayor A, Mr. Mayor B, and Madam Mayor C, told me and a large group of others on Tuesday night, that they had told Mr. City Manager years ago to get many of these projects done. I guess they didn’t check up on what their employee was doing with taxpayer time and money. Mr. Conservative Values complained that Mr. & Ms. City Council were trying to micro-manage Mr. City Manager by establishing performance standards. Lack of clearly defined standards is how businesses fail and governments get lazy. The two culprits who push hardest for standards of accountability are both small business owners who make a payroll every two weeks. The fundamentals of any business—especially small business—is that you establish goals for your employees, you provide resources, you check-up on their goal-oriented performance, and you reward success (or correct failures). That’s straight-forward Chamber of Commerce stuff. I don’t think Mr. Conservative Values understands this—he’s too focused on getting a government hand-out. Answering Semiredneck’s question (and you asked for it), here is what we are proposing to fund and construct:
I hope you read all this, Semiredneck, because you asked for it. That’s why I am being flogged by the non-blogging belt and suspenders crowd for being a big-time spender. I would much rather be flogged mercilessly with my own belt and suspenders by you blogging guys than be annoyed with the flaccid excuses being offered by the belt and suspenders guys for not doing our duty.
Submitted by Baxley on Sat, 09/22/2007 - 11:02am.
Mike, You have layed out a pretty convincing case for these improvements. In fact, if I lived in GCS, I'd be demanding that the City follow your advice. Apparently, you are meeting serious resistance to this prudent plan. Would those opposed to your suggestions be willing to lay out their case here? Or maybe you can shed further light, as I'm sure you know their arguments as well as they do. From your previous comments, best I can tell is that they are trying to sell the utility, instead of bringing it up to responsible standards. Close? Thanks.
Submitted by mkelter on Sat, 09/22/2007 - 12:16pm.
Baxley, Close enough. Council has voted several times to reject proposals to sell the utility. The main issue is $50M in bond obligations and stranded costs versus a paltry $17M sale price. The financial loss of these proposed “yard sale” transactions didn’t exactly endear themselves to the business-minded members of the Council. The current proposal to sell the system—the so-called “right-size” proposal (which I call the “Amputation Option”)—can be easily construed as an attempt to defraud the bondholders. The Amputation Option is apt to be a legally expensive dead-end street. The other proposal, as reported in MCS today by Mike Anderson, is the “pay-as-you-go” option. The City Manager claims he can get the work done in two-to-three years without borrowing money under this proposal. This proposal would take a financial “loaves and fishes” miracle to get the work done that fast. There isn’t enough money available to get the work done in eight or nine years under this proposal.
Submitted by Marsha on Sat, 09/22/2007 - 1:00pm.
I use that term in my work all the time, and that is what you have with infrastructure not being maintained, and/or not being updated to support growth both present and future. Deferred Maintenance has a negative impact on value. When it comes to infrastructure the negative impact on value is to the quality of life. Liken it to a woman who updates with plastic surgery and has rotten teeth. Teeth are infrastructure, bigger breasts are cosmetic. Rotten teeth can lead to all sorts of physical ailments, including death. Poor, aging, or insufficient infrastructure is a chronic disease to growing populations everywhere and there are examples of it all over the world, yet the lesson appears to be one that is only learned the hard way. Another great addition MKelter, you do a great job of putting it easily understood words. It would be great if GCS could be a leader in common sense ahead of other municipalities and/or counties in reading the writing on the wall. In this case, if you ignore it, it WILL NOT go away. You can pay it now or you can pay alot more later.
Submitted by mkelter on Sat, 09/22/2007 - 3:30pm.
Marsha, Great analogy! Although I know some guys who would consider a breast implant to be a necessary infrastructure improvement, I know the same guys would mentally adjust “infrastructure priorities” once they saw a structurally-retrofitted woman smile with really bad teeth. No infrastructure is ever as good as what it was when it was brand new. I don’t know what was in the water supply when I was young, but I know it didn’t have fluoride and it wasn’t really good for my teeth. By the time I turned 20 I had problems with sixteen of twenty-eight teeth. Generally speaking, the problems were with molars and bicuspids. It was a community-wide problem. I did some moderately decent repairs to the teeth to prevent larger problems, but regardless of maintenance habits (regular brushing and flossing) I still had repaired teeth in my head. Without quality and timely restorative dental work I figured quality of life would be more difficult as I got older. Several years ago, I met with my dentist, Dr. Steve, to discuss an eight-year capital improvement program for my teeth. I told Dr. Steve that my goal was to keep my teeth through age 90 and that I didn’t want to be sitting in a dentist’s office for major dental work after I turned 60. I assumed there would be higher risk of failure after that point. We settled on a restoration plan for my sixteen repaired molars and bicuspids over a period of eight years—two restorations per year. Dr. Steve specified the proposed structural design of each tooth. I specified materials based on material strength, compatible coefficients of thermal expansion, material taste, and shear sexiness of material appearance. I even specified the adhesive strength measured in kilopascals. We designed what we felt would be a 35-40 year service life for each tooth. I am about half-way through the program. I’m glad I started when I did, because every year it gets harder to spend time sitting in the dentist’s chair carrying on a conversation in contorted English with another guy who speaks good English and pretends to understand what I’m saying while he’s drilling. Don’t procrastinate on taking care of your teeth or other vital infrastructure.
Submitted by islander on Sat, 09/22/2007 - 3:46pm.
Almost 20 years ago the small Florida city in which I lived experienced the perfect storm happen to the water system. The power company installed a new feeder line several months ago. It was New Year's Day, and unusually cold. The power company didn't tighten the connection on one of the lines (for you techs, 3 phase), and the wire came loose. The town had redundancy built in, at least they thought. What should have happened and what did happen were two different things. The generator should have started, and transferred the power. No big deal, right? Wrong. The generator, didn't start. The pump was running on about 60% of the power it needed. So, it heated up and died. There was a second pump that should have started once the first pump gave up the ghost. Thank goodness that didn't happen. If the system had switched, the second backup pump would have suffered the same fate (smoked). It wasn't until about 3pm that this came to light. No water in the town. As the gravity tower emptied the system should have called the operator with a trouble, but the alarm was on the power line that was out. Everyone converged on the water treatment plant. We looked up and saw the wire dangling from the pole, not good. We entered the treatment plant, and the smell of burned copper had filled the building. The operator was able to start the generator (using a bit of ether on a cold balky diesel engine located in a building without electric heat) and switched to the backup pump once generator power had been established. We pulled the pump and sent it to Jacksonville to be repaired. Of course it was New Year's Day and we had to pay overtime, but we had to have the pump. In the mean time, the power company restored grid power to the system, and all seemed to be well. The real problem was that air had entered the whole system. That means the air had to be bled out of the whole system. If you know what a water hammer is, imagine a 10 inch line with a water hammer feeding a house with a 3/4 inch line. Fire hydrants had to be opened all over town to keep peoples faucets and toilets from being blown off the floors and out of sinks. Not a pretty thought, huh? Now add to all this, a house caught fire and here goes the fire department hooking to a hydrant. It is a small town and the operator was able to shut off water to the whole west side of town to supply water to the hydrant. Thankfully, damage to the home was minimal. It took almost 18 hours to restore water pressure and remove the air from the lines. The power company did pay for the pump, electronic switches and the overtime for the employees. Since that time, the town dug two new wells, and put all the electric lines underground. They instituted a policy for the operator to manually start the generator and check its operation every day the temperature drops below 35 degrees. Heat is now provided by propane. and a smaller propane backup generator operates the control circuity. Redundancy is critical to public infrastructure. If you cut corners you will pay the price, and in a real world, sometimes even what you consider adequate preparation isn't enough. Submitted by gcsconfidential on Sun, 09/23/2007 - 12:52am.
Well it seems the City Council has a very full plate. I appreciate your well explained and timely responses to those of us trying to keep up with the local politics. I agree with semiredneck that we need more quality restaurants in GCS. It gets old eating at the same four places every week (excluding fast food), year in and year out. But I have a different question on my mind. For those of us in the GCS city limits and our neighbors to the immediate north and south to Putnam County, the question is annexation. Why hasn't the city aggressively expanded its borders? ( I am aware of the recent annexation of the J&M property) I do not claim to be an expert on this topic, and due to your willingness to explain the issues of the city to the blogging community, I pose the question, why not? I am of the understanding that the growth of the city would increase our tax base. I also have had this discussion with friends and coworkers, many of which live south of town, and informed me that the draw for public service south of GCS is minimal. So much so that they say there are as many Skunk Ape sightings as there is CCSO Deputy cars, maybe more. I was just wondering why the city has not tried to grow and become an even bigger and better city than it already is? I would love to see this city expand west out to the Fairgrounds, north to Black Creek, south to the county line and east to the Shands Bridge. The city has a much better track record at handling public works and police issues than the county, so why not? Just my two cents worth.
Submitted by mkelter on Sun, 09/23/2007 - 8:58am.
I agree with Gcsconfidential’s statement about the quality of public service offered by Green Cove Springs. If you have a police emergency within the City limits, our police officers are at the door within a couple of minutes. If you have a garbage problem, we get it corrected fast. As far as taxes, this year the combined City-County ad valorem rate within GCS is nearly as low as the County rate outside the City limits. GCS has a lot to offer. . .except for an abundance of goods and services. We've got some pretty good restaurants, but not enough of them. Annexation is occurring, but faces hurdles. The JM annexation (the Huntley Annexation) faces issues we have been discussing in this blog. The proposed Comprehensive Plan change, which is required for all annexations, has been kicked back to the City for a couple of issues: lack of transportation concurrency and lack of potable water capacity. The potable water issue is more readily fixed if the Council adopts my proposal for borrowing State Revolving Fund money (at 2.64%) and getting the proposed projects complete. This fix will also help provide capacity and redundancy to support in-fill commercial development on US17 on the old Garber properties. The transportation issue is a tougher fix. The first proposal was to lower the transportation levels of service (LOS) from LOS C to LOS E. The Department of Transportation did not believe that was acceptable and neither do I. A revised Comp Plan proposal was brought to the Council on Tuesday night. This proposal changed the LOS on US 17 and SR 16 to LOS D. My public comments to the planners and City staff was that I cannot support lowering the levels of service. I am not endeared to any proposal that creates another Blanding Blvd. debacle in this county. I love good growth that provides more goods, services and jobs. And more restaurants too. But, I don’t love it enough to support traffic jams and the public safety risk eloquently described by Islander. Submitted by semiredneck on Mon, 09/24/2007 - 3:02pm.
Thanks for taking the time to share on improvements. It looks like good moves are being made. I suppose there is just not enough money to make all of them. Obviously there are other things that kind get by for now (Magnolia Ave improvement for one) In reading about annexation, it spurs a few ideas. Of course, there are a lot of rumors that float around about these, anyway. How did Bunnell manage to annex so much of Flagler County? Is that something GCS can do here, or would it be worth it? I forget how much they took in, 50,000 acres or something? Is annexation something that has the support of the full council? It seems natural that it would. What is your position, what kind of picture of GCS to you have in mind for the near future? and how does the homestead exemption factor in? I guess what I am really alluding to is, a lot of people think Crist is going to move toward a state income tax or casinos. If he tries to move us toward casinos, is that something we should embrace to keep taxes down here, and have somet sort of resort/casino @ Reynolds Park? Hey, let's get Donald Trump to invest in the area. He would make something so big and obnoxious it should pay everybodies taxes! Submitted by Evinalmighty1 on Mon, 10/01/2007 - 5:53am.
I agree. Green Cove has superior services and the city council should agrressivly pursue annexation. If Bunnell and Palm Coast did it then we couldn't we? I think the city council needs to stop dragging their feet and start taking some of this land in. Im sure most people in town would vote yes for an agressive annexation plan! Submitted by Evinalmighty1 on Mon, 10/01/2007 - 5:56am.
Casinos in Reynolds Park would be great for the whole south end of this county. People are talking about ...Here are the recent blog postings with the most comments. |
Who's online
There are currently 1 user and 110 guests online.
Online usersRecent comments |
Always enjoy your blogs, they're both informative and interesting, and even to some degree entertaining. Although I am not a GCS resident I appreciate your common sense, and your sense of decency. There is no doubt mega amounts of aggravation in your job and it speaks well of you as a person that you can get the issues out there, make the point of your aggravation but still deal only with the issues.
I hope your common sense approach wins, it should. I have to wonder how many people understand the seriousness of an insufficient and/or deferred maintenance of Infrastructure. Whatever it costs today, it will cost more tomorrow. An ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure.
Procrastination will eat you alive.