Out Of Their Minds: January

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Public-Private Partnerships Are ‘Toll Roads’ A Cure for State Infrastructure Woes?

By David Drucker

As Californians grapple with the issue of what services they want state government to provide and how much they are actually willing to pay for them, Sacramento businessman and Assemblyman Roger Niello (R-District 5) is eyeing a partial solution: Let the private sector fill the revenue gap that exists for infrastructure investment.
    And, in turn, let them reap the profits they sow.
    Niello’s plan calls for private corporations to spend money building the new roads, freeways and mass-transit projects needed to keep up with the state’s burgeoning population. He says state coffers can’t afford to finance these investments due to other, higher priority, responsibilities.
    Niello and those who support his “public-private partnership” concept, including Gov. Schwarzenegger, note cities and counties are already allowed to engage in the practice under current law. Niello also favors a policy known as “design-build,” which allows the state to farm out the designing of a project to the same private sector firm that builds it, under the premise that doing so is cheaper than having state-employed engineers do the work.
    Niello’s opponents, especially public-employee unions, refer to “public-private partnership” projects by their more common vernacular: “toll roads,” because the builders of such projects would retrieve the return on their investment by charging commuters a toll for use.
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