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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on May 8, 2008 4:17 AM. The previous post in this blog was Wayback Machine turns back the FBI. The next post in this blog is Everything's negative except the ions. Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

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Thursday, May 8, 2008

You're doing a heck of a job, Rusty

Tighty righty blogger and radio host Rob Kremer has been preaching for a while that in Portland area government, nothing succeeds like failure. Fireman Randy proved Kremer's point yesterday when he praised the city's chief bureaucrat in the face of an $21.6 million cost overrun on a $27.9 million computer project. A 77 percent budget screwup (so far)? No problem.

Comments (9)

Hey, an 80% overrun looks like a success to Randy. Remember that he helped design PFDR . . .

**Randy another ego-maniacal driven emperor.Like Sten never admit your errors.
I think Ariston told it right that the managers of the fiefdoms had no idea what they wanted. Too bad an audit of the mis-management of the bureaus is not brought into the light and how much this mis-management has cost the tax-payers, and/or customersor both at the same time.
New slogan for portland.." The city of Hubris, and we can prove it".

I don't know how many of you saw this on Catalyst, but it's worth a repost.

"This means that the City of Portland could hire ADP to perform all payroll and HR functions for all city employees for the next 31 years before they would exceed the $50,000,000 they are going to spend for a system that may actually never work and that is already behind schedule and over-budget. If the city took the 50 million and invested it very conservatively (say just 3%), sufficient funds would be generated to cover all HR and payroll costs forever!"

Randy and the others are never held responsible for anything. Ever.

Randy in particular is cavalier as he seemingly laughs off most goings on and cajoles about his business as if he's enjoying a hobby in retirement.

Funny guy Randy.

Unfortunately, like the others, he's also arrogant and lazy making him a very lousy commissioner and municipal leader.
Just the sort of people the Oregonian always endorses.

The one issue where Randy does appear to be getting it is the PDC lawyer matter. The current situation where PDC lawyers can deny commissioners access to PDC documents
is the most clear cut bureaucratic wrong in sight. When a sitting commissioner is being denied public records requests there can only be one reason. They don't want the operation exposed.

I'm maybe a bit irrational like Commissioner Leonard. When Commissar Leonard decreed all city gasoline shall contain at least 10% ethanol, I switched from buying my gas locally in Portland to buying it in the surrounding suburbs. I continue to do this just as a personal political protest. It's sad Commissar Leonard is running mostly unopposed. But hey, this is the city of perception, and not so much reality. Reality is borrowed money which won't come due til the current commissioners have moved on in all their pomp and glory.

Amazing the Leanord thinks it is a "perfect" performance to be $26m over budget (77% over budget) on this latest computer fiasco while he whines over and over about a $4m bust on the tram (the City's real share), or PDC investing a few million here and there to create affordable housing. He indeed is the chief hypocrite at City Council. If this computer thing is under his responsibility, he should be recalled for incompetance. Also amazing is that this story appeared on like page 7 in the Oregonian in a small column. It should be front page news!

I think you are all misreading Randy's comments.

1. I believe Ken Rust was hired to run the Bureau after the contractor was hired.

2. The problem it turned out wasn't with the contract or the system rather it was all the Bureau's who haven't been following the standard business practices the Mayor's Office ordered them to follow. Oregonian

3. When this fact was discovered recently Ken sat down with the contractor and said, "So what do we do to fix this." According to Ken the contractor replied, "We don't know." - Oregonian

4. At that point Ken fired the contractor and went to Council with the problem.

Assuming the above is all true, (and I believe it is) I think it is probably not inapropriate for Randy to tell Ken he was doing the right thing.

By the way the last I heard the guy who did hire the contractor was collecting his PERS and working for the State Department overseas at more than than he had earned as head of OMF.

Greg C

By the way the last I heard the guy who did hire the contractor was collecting his PERS and working for the State Department overseas at more than than he had earned as head of OMF.

I believe Ken Rust replaced Tim Grewe. I think the person you are thinking of is Ron Bergman, who retired and went to work for ICMA International, which assists local governments in third world countries. As I recall, his first posting was Sri Lanka.

No I was thinking of Tim Grewe who last I heard was in the Country of Georgia ie part of the former Soviet Union.

Greg C

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