New city hall is good for union, not rest of us

Erik Qualle, Las Vegas

Monday, Feb. 23, 2009 | 2:05 a.m.

Of course a local laborers union is embracing Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman’s elaborate plans for a new City Hall. Why wouldn’t it support a pork-laden project guaranteeing its membership jobs for the next few years? Keeping the members working keeps union dues coming into the local and supporting the staff with guaranteed paychecks.

This is not the time to be spending garish sums of money on a Taj Mahal-like setting to give Oscar Goodman his place in local history. Putting the city in more debt during an economic meltdown is the wrong idea and must be challenged. I support the concept of keeping the masses employed, but unfortunately I can see only another wasteful government project built on bonds and promises that cannot possibly be cashed now or in the next 20 years.

President Barack Obama has put his support behind an obscene bailout sure to keep our great grandchildren paying off our debt. It was unavoidable, the world economy is in a tailspin, but come on, Mr. Mayor, surely, with a little organization and planning, a smart city planner could make the current building workable. Let’s set an example and start getting some work out of your more than adequately paid staff — they’re called urban planners and city managers.

Perhaps, if the unions were to make concessions and be willing to overlook “prevailing wage” considerations and be willing to work within tight guidelines for the completion of this project, myself and other skeptics could go along with this outrageous project. But when was the last time any public project came in under a proposed budget or a labor union agreed to concessions on a job funded with public money?