Re: False economy is an ugly thing, Detroit.
jake wrote: "Stop allowing Money Bags from making Technical decisions, it'll do the city's budget a world of good"
Tom 13 wrote: "No, the core of their problem was assuming they didn't have to do anything to fix their financial problems long before they got to the point of buying discount batteries for their parking meters."
Need I point out that these are both so ridiculously oversimplified that they're useless? Apparently yes, I do need to point that out.
The battery decision was almost certainly made like this: "Parking Enforcement, you need to cut $X from your budget." "Well, let's see what line items we can trim." My guess is few EEs are available in the Parking Enforcement back offices. (Oh, and Peter2: I suspect the person procuring the batteries for the meters doesn't have authority to buy them from eBay. My guess would be that the city requires a purchase order and other paperwork, not just an email receipt from some random online account.)
And everyone has been aware that Detroit's finances have been in trouble for decades - long, long before the parking meters became a problem. There are certain complications that arise when a huge chunk of the population abandons your city, leaving you with just as much infrastructure to support but a drastically reduced tax base. Certainly a series of incompetent and corrupt city leaders didn't help, but it's not like everyone woke up one day a couple of years ago and said, "Hey, the city's out of money! Better switch to cheap batteries!".
But please, continue with your armchair mayoring. I'm sure Detroit would love to hear your brilliant advice.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
