A number of years ago, I had occasion to bid on a vehicle project with an affluent county in California.
In the clarification phase of this process, I wrote my questions, and in response I received a reply from the fleet purchasing manager, which only had about half a page to write on. The rest of the page was covered with all the environmental things he was proud of — and he was clearly very proud.
In this case, he expected a hybrid truck, which is very expensive, because he was so conscious of the environment. But the way this truck was going to be used, there would be zero benefit of the hybrid. Just a lot more costly.
However, cost wasn’t his concern, just adding another expensive vehicle to his fleet that pretended to be environmentally friendly.
That experience popped into my head recently. I read about the solar experiment in Tumwater where the school spent $100,000 on a solar charging station. To be fair, it was only $12,742 from their general fund. The rest was magic money from the state, but all of it taxpayers’ money.
So far, it has only reached 8% of its promised result — which to be fair, might just be a pretty good return for a government promise. Dismal by business standards, but normal for the government.
The author, Carleen Johnson from The Center Square, interviewed the city’s sustainability manager and quoted from the promises in the announcement last summer about the value of such a project, which have not been realized. Washington Policy Center Vice President Todd Myers played out a number of statistics, which you can find in The Chronicle, which only confirm how poorly it has performed.
And, yet again, the company providing this to Tumwater has gone out of business.
That seems to be the reoccurring theme of these companies: unless taxpayers fund them with subsidies, they go broke. And even then, far too frequently, after the wild promises announced by the government with much fanfare, they are never realized and are financially unsustainable.
But we keep getting fleeced with political promises that almost never come true.
I’m no rocket scientist, as some of my critics will tell you, but like Todd Myers, I agree that solar in Western Washington seemed risky. Sometimes, it's cloudy and wet.
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It’s hard to believe, but Green Hill School has made the news — again.
Chehalis City Councilor Kevin Carns wrote an opinion piece about the burden the changes at Green Hill have brought to the city. It’s a long way from the reform school for wayward boys it used to be: a working farm, which produced products they used and taught the residents who were nothing like who are housed there now the value of work.
“What was once envisioned as a place for youthful rehabilitation has now become a revolving door for violent offenders, adult criminals masquerading as youth and unchecked chaos,” Carns wrote.
He’s right, and it's a wonder it has taken so long for the city, and the county, to demand better from the state and compensation for all the issues there. By “better” I mean money for the pain they have become.
It’s been a while, but it used to be that mixing juveniles with adults was prohibited. Sight and sound protections from the two groups were required, and it made sense. Once an offender turned 18, they went to jail or prison — not juvenile detention — to protect actual juveniles.
But in Green Hill, they house men in a boys’ facility, put it under the Department of Children, Youth and Family Services. What has happened, and what will continue to happen, is predictable.
Let’s be clear: it's a prison, and most, if not all, there are serious offenders — and a lot of them are men, not boys.
Often when Green Hill is in the news, it involves staff. I’m certain there are some qualified people working there, and I don’t want to malign them, but something is wrong with the selection criteria or supervision over there.
Olympia, and stupid policy, is the weak link here.
But then that's not really a surprise — the bureaucracy in Olympia has been a weak link for years.
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John McCroskey was Lewis County sheriff from 1995 to 2005. He lives outside Chehalis and can be contacted at musingsonthemiddlefork@gmail.com.
