Local vs. Out-of-Town Contractors
Today's Peninsula Poll question is:
Should North Olympic Peninsula governments award contracts to Peninsula construction companies, or should they always pick the lowest bidder regardless of a firm's home location?
Number of votes cast: 634
Should North Olympic Peninsula governments award contracts to Peninsula construction companies, or should they always pick the lowest bidder regardless of a firm's home location?
Number of votes cast: 634
posted by Tom Harper at 12:05 PM
11 Comments:
Primo, all the way!
There you go. Support your local businesses?
Well, it depends on the dollar amount.
Legislate THAT.
Local contractors bid so high because they didn't really want to be associated in any way with appearing to support the Elwha restoration project.
Better to pass up a job like this one and get smiled upon by the majority of environment ravagers that comprise the majority of their client base.
Below are two links to a game changing documentary that has gone "viral".
This is relevant to us, here, as our country continues to live in the past as it attempts to "lead" us, with dire economic consequences that will be impacting our area.
The continuing "debate" over Keystone is a distraction from what is really going on, and shows us all clearly how our "leaders" are not serving us well. The world that the US and Canada think they are going to sell these fossil fuels to, is changing.
Here are two versions of a documentary. The first is the last 15 minutes or so, where you can get the "summary".
The second is an NPR site that has the entire doco.
According to the media, this documentary was viewed by 150 million Chinese in 3 days. You think they are paying attention?
What sane person, after watching this, thinks the Chinese are interested in importing Americas' or Canadas' fossil fuels? This was already shifting with Chinas' and Indias' announcement of the construction of 100 gigawatts of solar, each, recently.
As with so many other issues, America and Canada are stuck in their rhetoric, while the rest of the world moves on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKxnQxyOXfI
http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2015/03/04/390689033/the-anti-pollution-documentary-thats-taken-china-by-storm
Just checking in...
In the area, there has been a lot of work put into promoting the building of coal ports, and talk about increasing shipments of coal via "coal trains".
Out in the Port Angeles harbor, oil tankers are a pretty common sight.
As that video shows, China is not happy with fossil fuels, and is aggressively moving away from their use at an incredible speed. They plan to have 100 gigawatts of solar on line with in 3 years. By comparison, all the solar the US has built so far is only 17 gigawatts.
Port Angeles hasn't been too quick to shift to the future, so far. And as a result of intentionally being "left behind", we suffer economically.
The writing on the wall is there for anyone to see. Investing in fossil fuel infrastructure is like investing in rotary telephones and phone books. Clearly, the world is leaving it all behind, and moving on.
The title of this thread is in part "Local vs Out-of-Town..".
Is Port Angeles working towards self reliance and supporting a locally based economy, or hanging onto the fossil fuel based, energy intensive "globalized" economy?
Commissioner Chapman raised the topic of "local contractors vs out-of-town" at the last Board of County Commissioners meeting, and threatened to quit his position because of his frustration with the status quo. That so few make any effort to work to change what clearly needs to be changed.
Are we just going to sit back, and watch our own decline?
Some projects require specialized skills and we don't have those contractors-i.e. asbestos abatement, highway builders, boiler pipefitters, etc.
Primo's motto should be -- we give the kickbacks to the city of PA, and we do substandard work.
One of Chapmans points was that if you are forced to take the lowest bid, why be surprised when you get low quality results?
You know? You get what you pay for.
Speaking of alternative energy, what ever happened to the tidal energy project that was going to be tried here? Seems like that'd be perfect for this area. But, nope.
No kidding. Tidal power, we got. And it is free, 24/7. Rain or shine.
Instead, we have oil tankers in the harbor!
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