Brooklyn Bridge Park more costly than necessary?
Source: By Patrick Arden, Metro New York, MAR 15, 2007
BROOKLYN. The $15.2 million maintenance and operations budget for the planned Brooklyn Bridge Park calls for a workforce running between 53 and 94 to look after 62 acres. Speed is apparently not a requirement for a job. Snow removal that needs hand shoveling instead of a plow, for instance, will take up to 9,198 hours, or enough work to employ 4.4 people full-time and year-round. Checking sprinklers will require another 5,208 hours, or enough for 2.5 full-time employees working year-round and making $45.07 an hour. Rodent and pest control will need 8,286 hours and alone could account for 4 full-time dedicated workers.
… That $21.4 million contract seemed high to Claude Fort, president of AFSCME Local 375, which represents about 2,000 architects and engineers employed by New York City.
… He doesn’t understand why city or state architects weren’t used. … We are highly skilled, and we have been fighting this privatization, trying to make the city understand that when you do the work in-house it costs much less money and is often much better.”