02-18-2020, 03:56 AM
Turns out our building department isn't unique or special.
https://missionlocal.org/2020/02/mohamme...-happened/
In fact, the Department of Building Inspection signed a deal with the San Ramon-based cloud- and web-based software company Accela to provide a permit-tracking system that would have eliminated all of these opportunities for cronyism and chicanery.Â
But that was in 2011. And it still hasn’t been completed. The city’s sclerotic process on getting the Accela system up and running was a story five years ago.
Sound familiar?
San Francisco’s cottage industry of well-connected permit expediters — men and women who are paid to shepherd a project through the system — is, in itself, an acknowledgement of failure. It’s an indicator of a labyrinthine setup in which those who can pay for a guide find their way through expediently and those who cannot don’t.Â
But it’s worse than that: Regular folks aren’t condemned to purgatory simply because the system is arcane (though it is) but because its resources are allocated to keeping the connected expediters happy. They get to skip the line; they get their stuff looked at and stamped off. You don’t.
In our current non-system system, expediters can put colorful Post-It notes on their paper plans (paper!), and then walk through the department, spot them sitting on desks, and slip things to the right official behind the counter.Â
Here we call them "consultants".
https://missionlocal.org/2020/02/mohamme...-happened/
In fact, the Department of Building Inspection signed a deal with the San Ramon-based cloud- and web-based software company Accela to provide a permit-tracking system that would have eliminated all of these opportunities for cronyism and chicanery.Â
But that was in 2011. And it still hasn’t been completed. The city’s sclerotic process on getting the Accela system up and running was a story five years ago.
Sound familiar?
San Francisco’s cottage industry of well-connected permit expediters — men and women who are paid to shepherd a project through the system — is, in itself, an acknowledgement of failure. It’s an indicator of a labyrinthine setup in which those who can pay for a guide find their way through expediently and those who cannot don’t.Â
But it’s worse than that: Regular folks aren’t condemned to purgatory simply because the system is arcane (though it is) but because its resources are allocated to keeping the connected expediters happy. They get to skip the line; they get their stuff looked at and stamped off. You don’t.
In our current non-system system, expediters can put colorful Post-It notes on their paper plans (paper!), and then walk through the department, spot them sitting on desks, and slip things to the right official behind the counter.Â
Here we call them "consultants".