City Hall
Why Is This Overrun Different From All Other Overruns?
At a press briefing this afternoon, Mayor Mike McGinn acknowledged that his initial proposal, made back in January of 2010, to put a $241 million seawall measure on the ballot would have left the project as much as $116 million in the red (or perhaps $36 million in the red if the city only built a basic, "low-cost" wall with fewer habitat enhancements and less flexibility for waterfront improvements).
"We're narrowing in on the true costs now," McGinn said.
As I reported last week, buried at the end of a 90-page council briefing on the seawall were new cost estimates showing that the seawall will costs tens of millions more than previously estimated.
McGinn said he didn't regret proposing a ballot measure without knowing the true costs of the project, because the seawall is such a big project, "the only way we're going to finance it is if we go to the public and ask them to help us finance it."
Huh? Doesn't that position--finance it now, figure out the cost later---directly conflict with McGinn's fiscal conservatism on another big infrastructure project, the $4.2 billion deep-bore tunnel? On that megaproject, McGinn's mantra has been, "I just want to know how we're going to pay for it." Does that question no longer apply when it comes to a project the mayor likes?
I took advantage of the mostly empty press conference (the topic of the afternoon was "outcome based budgeting"---read all about it on McGinn's blog here) to ask him.
McGinn said there's no conflict between his take-it-slow position on the tunnel and his full-speed-ahead position on the seawall. "If we'd gone to the ballot and it was approved, we would have the majority of our financing in place to proceed," McGinn said. "The [shortfall] would be as little as [sic]$30 million."
Or as much as $116 million, more than a third the potential cost of the project. It's hard to imagine the mayor being quite so sanguine if the project facing a potential one-third shortfall was the tunnel instead of the seawall.
"We're narrowing in on the true costs now," McGinn said.
As I reported last week, buried at the end of a 90-page council briefing on the seawall were new cost estimates showing that the seawall will costs tens of millions more than previously estimated.
McGinn said he didn't regret proposing a ballot measure without knowing the true costs of the project, because the seawall is such a big project, "the only way we're going to finance it is if we go to the public and ask them to help us finance it."
Huh? Doesn't that position--finance it now, figure out the cost later---directly conflict with McGinn's fiscal conservatism on another big infrastructure project, the $4.2 billion deep-bore tunnel? On that megaproject, McGinn's mantra has been, "I just want to know how we're going to pay for it." Does that question no longer apply when it comes to a project the mayor likes?
I took advantage of the mostly empty press conference (the topic of the afternoon was "outcome based budgeting"---read all about it on McGinn's blog here) to ask him.
McGinn said there's no conflict between his take-it-slow position on the tunnel and his full-speed-ahead position on the seawall. "If we'd gone to the ballot and it was approved, we would have the majority of our financing in place to proceed," McGinn said. "The [shortfall] would be as little as [sic]$30 million."
Or as much as $116 million, more than a third the potential cost of the project. It's hard to imagine the mayor being quite so sanguine if the project facing a potential one-third shortfall was the tunnel instead of the seawall.
