Why San Fran Spent $1,700,000 On A Toilet

Why did San Francisco spend nearly $2 million on a single toilet?
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[@doltsbane]

Does that revised figure include the cost of having to rebuild the thing over and over after it gets trashed by drug addicts and mentally ill homeless people?

[@JazzJackrabbit]

Oh no, that comes under the 'Maintenance' budget - different department!

[@dangeary2134]

Good question. Maybe someone should do a study on how much it would cost to replace a single brick in a sidewalk. Probably about 2 million dollars, my bet.

[@joshuachase9742]

This reminds me of one of my favorite lines from any movie. In "Tremors 3", when the government agents agree to let Burt do his thing and the FBI guy asks what they should do, the response is perfect. "Do what you do best. Find something simple and complicate it!"

[@AlexRussell-kd9pd]

Does all the the USA have these insane regulations? In most of Canada bathrooms at public parks are small buildings made of cinderblock with stainless steel toilets and sinks to avoid vandalism, and they don't cost millions of dollars. A small one with two stalls for women and two stalls for man that looks like a sturdy garden shed would generally cost about $600,000 (including all permits etc...) and be expected to last 50 to 60 years. A stand-alone bathroom that is self cleaning meant for a city centre would cost about $500,000 - if it could get funded. Somehow, I think bathrooms at Yellowstone park cost about the same as ones at our parks. Competent government is possible, but you have to vote for it.

[@NotMyWar]

@@AlexRussell-kd9pd Well no, most of America has it's municipal jobs done by the private sector. It's the dumb asses that run places like New York and San Francisco where this stuff happens.

[@TyeDPod]

"We are from the government and we are here to help."

[@richardross7219]

I've seen many government projects that were intentionally under estimated so that it will get funded. The Big Dig in Boston was originally $2 billion. I think that it ended up over $22 billion.

[@--harry_]

I used to sell 2 way radios, beepers, and cell phones to government accounts in new Jersey. The state had a website with pricing that I had to charge all government accounts. If I beat the price or was able to give a discount or something free I could be fined or jailed. Most of the time I had to legally over charge them because they had fixed prices that were old prices. They said it was so that they didn't pay $100 for toilet paper. You or I would have set a max charge price, instead government had a "negotiated" fixed price.

[@gregr6799]

You'd think... at some point... after the incalculable number of disastrous failures of *all* of their policies... you'd think it impossible for those running California *NOT* to start reassessing their decision-making paradigms...

[@markusfreund6961]

What do you mean, disastrous failures? They're living their best life, getting rich on the taxpayers' money **and** getting to sneer at those they're feeding off of. That's not failure, that's the epitome of success. Unless, of course, you look at it without the first idea how the world works.

[@TheGemar14]

Didn't you watch the video? This would happen in any state, red or blue, California or Texas.

[@markusfreund6961]

@@TheGemar14 Reality says otherwise.

[@TheGemar14]

@@markusfreund6961 Well then your quarrel is with Nick, not me. He's the one who made it a problem of government not political party. Also, if efficient building is the sign of good governance then the Chinese government blows everyone out of the water. So...socialism is actually good? I don't think that's a conclusion anyone here agrees with.

[@markusfreund6961]

@@TheGemar14 Nice strawman. Anyway, what quarrel? All the sane, reasonable, trustworthy people are currently in one political camp, which happens to be the same as Nick's.

[@gringo3009]

Term limits! No life benefits! No insider trading!

[@karenwarren1241]

NO retirement plans.

[@FartSquirel]

Or salary by goals achieved. You promised, didn't deliver by full. No pay.

[@NotMyWar]

Lmao that will change nothing

[@MarvinPowell1]

I've seen this story before. It's due to beaucracy and extreme incompetence.

[@williambilyeu9801]

John Stossel did a similar story. A company offered to built the toilet and contribute it free of charge, but government regulations would still cost $1.2 million.

[@im_not_meg.]

moral of the story: government's gonna government

[@Zeero3846]

I'm sure they're glad they did such a good job saving $1.4 million.

[@jimwerther]

​@@raffiklausner5016 Not even close

[@stevenscott2136]

From what I hear about SF, people will just drop their loads in the street.

[@handimanjay6642]

Union labor mandates, kick backs, and corruption to the core is why it cost so much.

[@TheGemar14]

He literally said it was not due to corruption, did you just skip the video and go to the comments?

[@honkeytonklin2198]

Administrative fees account for most of the cost

[@cataphracts123]

It's just legalized money laundering. Find the cheapest project and get as much money as you can for it in legislature and skim as much as you can off the top.

[@ctreid87]

Beard Wednesday!

[@damiettes7140]

Show me the computation and paid invoices please!!

[@jamesfowley4114]

Some contractors or unions are getting some payback. Cash kickbacks for votes are too difficult now.

[@kevinbryer2425]

It's population density. When you can't even pass gas without potentially negatively impacting someone else, everything has to be regulated to the hilt. If you can't pee off your back porch, your neighbors are too close.

[@behcherry9815]

Give me $10,000 I'll give you a toilet.... How does it cost millions?????

[@arthur131313]

SF has shown you don't need a toilet just use the street

[@axepagode4321]

So did this toilet cost $1.7 million or $300 thousand? You are saying both.

[@nextel3253]

IE Taylor Middle School project

[@gorilladisco9108]

With that kind of money, you can build 10 units of Trump's gold plated toilets.

[@lFunGuyl]

FIRST

[@MarvinPowell1]

No one f*cking cares.

[@markusfreund6961]

@@MarvinPowell1 And yet you care enough to leave this self-contradictory comment **and** presume to speak for everybody. Your misplaced confidence is most amusing.

[@gussampson5029]

Dude I gotta say this video is pretty pointless lol. I assumed you were going to tell us who got the fucking money. How was it only $300K when it says they "spent 1.7 million on a toilet"? I usually like your videos but this one was just a waste of my time. "Government is corrupt and inefficient." Yeah I know that, thanks. You could have saved me a few minutes and just tweeted that sentence out.

[@TheGemar14]

Except Nick explicitly stated the problem was not corruption but bureaucratic inefficiency. You can be a perfectly honest but inefficient bureaucrat.

[@PhilW7670]

@@TheGemar14 Except he didn't. He said getting things done in bureaucracy is a nightmare even under a best-case scenario of no or little government corruption. He said that it is not corruption that makes a bureaucracy a nightmare, so simply cleaning up corruption - as if that would be possible - would not solve the problems. It's called listening *and* comprehending.