Who are these Guys Behind the Curtain?

Here’s my first word on the OC Blog, and maybe the last word on the PLA.  In listening to the Board meeting yesterday, each Member commented on the “lack of data” re. the PLA’s benefit.  In fact, the accompanying Staff Report listed this Agenda Item’s Financial Impact as “N/A.”

Clearly, not a one of them knew how much the PLA has cost in non-competitive contracts since the 2000 Board voted for it, again, presumably, without staff work to calculate the financial impact of letting the Unions eat their lunch for four years.  There are 380 people in the Auditor-Controller’s office, yet no one was apparently requested to do this analysis…but then, this apparently matched the amount of analysis that was done when this abomination was voted in.  Silva dissed the others a bit when he noted that the Item had originally been continued twice due to the need for a third vote.

Wilson cleared it all up, tho, when he said the PLA was “strictly a policy issue, not a political issue,” then saying the “Board should open work for competition.”  Norby called the blanket nature of the PLA “unfair,” and wondered why it was approved in the first place.

The union commentary at the meeting was predictable.  We’re to be overrun by unskilled, untrained, below living wage workers.  But then maybe they can do a financial analysis?