From an exclusive in the New York Daily News:
“In one of its final acts, the Bloomberg administration pushed through a costly contract to modernize the city’s 311 call system — hiring the same company fired by the feds for the botched rollout of the Obamacare website. The city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, known as DoITT, awarded the contract to the Montreal-based company CGI on Dec. 31, hours before Bill de Blasio was sworn in as mayor.”
This isn’t even an incompetent U.S. company. It’s based in Montreal.
We need not dwell on this, need we? (I really can’t, because my endurance is limited when I’m missing the top of my head.) There can be no acceptable justification for such irresponsible conduct. The only explanations are…
- Kickbacks or cronyism. Someone wants this company to get the contract.
- A complete rejection of accountability as a governing concept. This company’s well-publicized failure, with disastrous practical. political and financial consequences, should have disqualified it permanently from any further government contracts.
- A complete rejection of fairness as a governing value. Another company deserved a chance, because this one had a high-profile task and blew it spectacularly.
- Contempt for the public and the importance of responsible use of tax-payer funds.
- Utter, inexplicable stupidity.
Or some obscene combination.
Ethics Alarms 
Actually, I’m pretty sure the ACA website was done by a US subsidiary of the Canadian company. Not that it matters, as there is virtually no part of that entire entity that has ever displayed any competence.
Utterly obscene, spectacularly stupid, contemptibly political incompetence, and disdain for the people they are supposed to serve should just about describe it. Wanna bet Bloomburg will never be called on it?
I’ve got another one: Leaving a ticking time bomb for his replacement. I don’t know how hard it is to change companies once a contract is signed, but my bureaucratic cynicism guesses that it’s really hard. So why not approve a contract with a company you know is capable of screwing the pooch, and then leave it in the lap of the next guy? When it all goes to hell everyone will blame him.
Oh I know. My subtle cynical side felt this might have been Bloomberg’s way of saying “screw you for the stuff y’all said about me”
But I Donno. I think it was just colossal incompetence.
Hanlon’s razor? Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence? I mean, I know- but you’d have to be SO blisteringly incompetent I don’t know if I CAN attribute it to just that.
Except the last minute, under-the-wire nature of it suggests malice, or at least knowledge that the decision will be criticized.
This is one of those points where Occam trumps Hanlon. BECAUSE so many factors would have to align for it to be simple incompetence, Malice is the simpler answer.
Jack,
You know the other mayors, hell governors and the fed do it also. It’s not like its illegal and plus it’ll work out in the end. Anyway, the way Bloomberg was mistreated at the post election speeches, he’s ok to saddle the new administration with a mess, they deserve it. Considering all the other great work by Bloomberg and he’s a pretty good guy, let him have this one.
Either way, the people of New York knew this would happen to them when they elected Bloomberg, so they deserve it. Politics and nepotism is what it is Jack, best not to expect Bloomberg to be the first to not do this.
Plus its not like its as bad as what he could have done, which was actually be a partial owner of the company he awarded the contract to.
Anyway, nobody’s perfect, cut him some slack, its not like you haven’t made mistakes, so who are you to judge?
Tex…you are absolutely correct. And seriously, if Bloomberg hadn’t hired this company, we all know someone else would have!
I found it increasingly difficult to add to the list. Thanks!
These are not ordinary times!
Comment of the day, Tex, that was funny!
Ha!
I’m afraid this comment may have given Jack an aneurysm.
The “Read more” link(s) seem(s) to be missing.
I have no evidence this happened, but it’s imaginable.
What if there’s a stupidly inflexible rule about awarding contracts to the lowest bidder?
Even then, presumably, anyone committed to good government would try to find a way to disqualify that firm, or would have reformed the low-bidder rule in the first place.
Well he wasn’t any Fiorello H. La Guardia or even Rudy Giuliani during his term. He did accomplish getting the “soda police” in place which is hell of an accomplishment 😉 I guess wise use of the taxpayer’s money isn’t his strong suit.
I have a theory. CGI, the Corporation, has some sort of information about Liberals that is so damning, so monstrous that no liberal will ever be elected to any office in this country, ever again. Something like all Liberals are Masons or something.
Bloomberg is a liberal? News to me.
Then, Chase, I would suggest that you start following the news somewhere other than MSNBC. He started out as a Democrat, prior to 2001, switched to being a Republican 2001-2007 and in 2007 decided he was an independent. Unfortunately, claiming to be an independent does not make you one. His last year as mayor, he fostered such dubious agendas as banning smoking anywhere in NYC, indoors or out, banning 16 oz soft drinks and pushing several million dollars into Colorado to promote and then defend their idiotic and unconstitutional anti-gun laws. Yeah, he’s a liberal.
Wait–where I have YOU been? I was just thinking about you. I’m so glad to get your comment, I won’t even razz you for not considering Bloomberg a liberal.
He’s a law and order, nanny state liberal, well left of Giuliani. By de Blasio standards, he’s conservative, yes. But I know of no conservative that considers Bloomberg a kindred spirit.
I think he’d really like to be King.
I’ve been lurking. You’ve been doing a lot of political posts and I prefer not to comment on those.
I consider Bloomberg a centrist on the conservative-liberal scale, but a full-red statist on the libertarian-statism scale. His social policies are left-wing and EXTREMELY heavy handed, and his economic policies are right-wing and EXTREMELY heavy handed. Note the common theme. This is why I prefer the plane scale I just mentioned to a traditional left-right. Bloomberg isn’t so much a leftist as he simply wants to be a petty dictator.
I’m flattered, by the way. While I differ with you in many opinions, I have a great deal of esteem for you, and it means something that you’d remember me.
Great diagnosis, in agreement with mine, but much better. Thanks.
I think you meant on social policies, he’s very right wing and heavy handed (because according to the arbitrary system accepted by academics, that’s what right wingers are heavy handed on)
And on economic policies he’s very leftwing and heavy handed (because on the same manufactured system, that’s what left wingers are heavy handed on)
Unless you’re planning to demonstrate that Bloomberg is anti-gay, anti-abortion, pro-giant-soda, etc., he’s a nanny-state leftist socially. And from what I’ve heard, most of his economic policies were pretty pro-rich and pro-corporate.