This Country is no longer run by government, it is run by BIG BUSINESS!



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Some new cities outsource city hall
Savings cited; critic fears ‘shadow' rule

By Oren Dorell
USA TODAY

Newly formed cities are giving the keys to city hall to private companies that say they can run a government better than bureaucrats.

Mayors in “contract cities” say they get better services for less money; more flexibility, because private employees can be hired and fired more easily than workers under civil service rules; and lower debt, because they can own fewer buildings and less equipment.

Sandy Springs, a newly incorporated Atlanta suburb, hired CH2M Hill to staff all departments except police and fire for about $30 million a year. The city of almost 100,000 has only four employees besides police officers and firefighters.

“We wanted to get the most efficient possible use of our tax dollars,” Mayor Eva Galambos says.

Also using the model:

•Weston, Fla., contracts with the firm Severn Trent for administrative services and with Broward County for public safety. Weston employs only three people.

•Centennial, Colo., has contractors and about 30 employees.

Cities for years have hired firms to handle trash hauling and roadwork. Only recently have some outsourced all of city hall.

Stephen Goldsmith, who privatized some services in Indianapolis when he was mayor in the 1990s, says the contract city model makes sense for a small, new city. “You're not going to see a Philadelphia turn around and do this,” he says.

Maybe not, but the financially troubled city of San Diego, population 1.3 million, recently talked with representatives of Sandy Springs about their privatization.

“Some governments take each department and build stovepipes and people turfs,” says Rick Hirsekorn, the CH2M Hill program director at Sandy Springs. “As a privately held company, employee-owned, it behooves everyone in the company to help somebody else.”

Fred Siegel, author of the book The Prince of the City * about how Mayor Rudy Giuliani battled public-employee union influence in New York * says the privatizing trend is driven by voters who think local governments have stopped being accountable to them.

Kerry Korpi of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees says giving a company control of city hall is giving away control of the city.

“Contractors aren't subject to the same kind of open-records and open-meetings laws as public employees are,” she says. “You end up with a shadow government.”