The Political Decision Process
Publication: Leadership and Management in Engineering
Volume 8, Issue 4
The Political Decision Process
There are over two million registered engineers in this great country who are at the forefront of solving problems and designing solutions for our society and future generations. Yet, there are very few engineers in the United States who participate in the political design process. Engineers bring many years of training, experience, and professional judgment that highly qualifies us to participate, evaluate, and debate numerous issues inherent in our political and government processes.
When you take a moment to think about the attributes we as engineers have to offer, you begin to realize how much we are needed in the political process. Engineers are highly trained problem solvers, we have highly developed mathematical skills, and we have an aptitude for logical reasoning. Some say we, as professionals, may lack the emotion to be effective in the political arena. On the other hand, the same argument can be used when deciding how effective “pure emotion” is for designing laws and approving projects that are not fully comprehended.
According to a recent congressional survey of the 109th Congress, there are just four engineers in the House of Representatives and one engineer in the Senate. This is in vast contrast to other parts of the world, such as in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, where engineers are prominently represented at the highest levels of government. It is clear that other governments actively solicit the scientific and technological elite to be part of the administration.
Those of us who participate in our political process are constantly utilizing our engineering skills to help design and implement a variety of resolutions, laws, and government projects. We have a unique capability to have influence in the design and implementation of solutions on important contemporary issues that will augment the contribution engineers make to our country, society, and our quality of life.
Understanding the local political process provides a good basic education and insight into how engineers are participating, making contributions, and solving problems in the community. I have served my community for almost twenty years as an elected mayor (still active) for fifteen years, and prior to that, as a city commissioner for four years. During this time, I have owned and operated a professional engineering business. My educational background and experience in both public works and projects has been very valuable in performing my mayoral duties in a city of eighty thousand people. Originally I believed that the elected members, the general public, and others, in a joint effort to develop a better community, would provide support for my decisions after understanding the facts. As you will read, facts often times are clouded in the political decision-making process.
Although we are engineers with problem, solving skills, we sometimes lack the ability to effectively influence the decision-making processes in government due to its political and emotional nature.
Let me briefly explain. There is an array of important elements that are at work in the political arena that affect a final decision:Although both politicians and engineers take an oath to protect the health and welfare of the public, the engineer most often seeks the best possible solution to the problem. On the other hand, most politicians select the solution based upon what he or she perceives will satisfy the constituents.
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General public opinion concerning complex issues;
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Political attitude of and between elected members;
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Cost and impact of projects that are not always clearly understood; and
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Background and experience of the elected board members, including their prejudices or predisposed opinions.
Unfortunately, most governments and elected officials often do not have the professional expertise to fully understand and analyze the problems. In fact, most council members rely on staff or outside services to provide information during the decision-making process. In spite of this, most decisions are based on the wishes of the people rather than balancing the logical facts with public opinion. In many cases, the people favoring a decision do not have a grasp on the details of a particular project or issue. It is not unusual for the elected officials to search and seek in favor of the public while ignoring important factors. In fact, most public projects require much explanation and hand holding by the engineers before a reasonable decision could be properly considered.
Generally, public opinion of government is that it is dysfunctional and has a primary interest in collecting taxes. Furthermore, the engineers and technical staff are perceived as technocrats who exploit the taxpayer for their own technical interests. The political attitude of the elected board can have a significant impact on public projects. Most elected members are supported by voters who have a definite opinion and bias regardless of the issue. These individuals can influence and eventually persuade the elected body to vote on their behalf as opposed to what is best for the public and community.
The political process can seem foreign to an engineer because it’s contrary to the fundamental principles of problem solving. For example, public budgets are developed by the staff and at the administrative level of government. In general, they are prepared by using previous budgets, capital improvements and plans, and anticipated revenue provided by the local tax collectors’ office. These budgets are presented to the elected board, and are most often approved with little discussion or consideration for future planning needs.
When capital projects are being evaluated they typically include expenditures for large sums of money over periods of several years. Usually, municipal capital expenditures are paid by selling obligations and/or revenue bonds to investors. These capital projects may have a duration of five to ten years from concept to construction. For example, a simple mitigation operation center of forty to fifty thousand square feet can take eight years before completion. The cost of these capital projects, if not properly projected to the time period, can increase the general cost of the project one hundred percent above the original concept cost. As a consequence, many great projects get a “black eye” due to cost overruns, because they were not properly estimated for the extended period of time necessary to actually implement and complete the project.
In order to better understand the nature of these types of capital projects, I will briefly explain how funds may be obtained through the bond process. The first step is to have the project concept accepted by the elected body and the public. Once the concept is accepted, plans can then be made to acquire the capital to fund the project. In doing so, the engineer in public service provides invaluable assistance to the other elected officials in preparing convincing arguments as to why the project is necessary and its potential future implications. As a result, many of these projects become highly emotionally charged. When this occurs, logic and technical wisdom are lost in the decision process.
Once the elected officials decide to place a project on the ballot for the public to vote for a general obligation bond, legal council must be obtained. At this stage, presentations to Wall Street and other financial institutions begin to take place. This process, which includes negotiations, presentations, and final vote by the board, can extend a project’s life by a year or more. If the public vote is positive, the project can now go into the second phase of a more detailed design.
Before the final design is completed, a project may have multiple revisions. In many cases, in order to seek support of the community and other elected officials, additions, deletions, and changes to the project may be included. During this process, the initial cost of the project may have changes that are so dramatic a second bond or revision to the first bond may be required, possibly delaying the project an additional six to twelve months.
After general agreement and approvals are obtained, detailed plans and specifications are developed as part of a bid package. By the time the bids are accepted and recorded, construction costs may change significantly from the original budget estimates. Due to this lengthy process, it is not uncommon for a year to pass before bids are accepted, there is a notice to proceed, and the contractor is on site.
It should be noted that even when the most diligent effort is made to control and minimize cost increases and changes to the original plans, the project will most likely be perceived by the public as being over budget and poorly conceived. Furthermore, the elected body during this period may have changed and some of the new members will have interjected their own opinions on the worthiness of the project. When this occurs, it is again necessary to provide the facts that originally justified the project, and the reasons for any changes. While there is an emotional impact, this requires an elected official who can comprehend the original governing details and explain the reasoning that was used during the process.
Following are actual projects that briefly highlight the political decision process and the impact of the final results.
Project 1: Crystal Lakes
A recent project in which my company was involved during my fifteen years as mayor involved the construction of a warehouse along a burrow pit that is now described as a lake. The original plans were designed to establish a warehouse of a specific size. The owner included in this plan an offer to dedicate a fifty-foot-wide linear green park, with a thirty-foot-wide landscape area. In order to accomplish this, the owner would have had to fill a portion of the lake (which he owned) that had eroded over time.
Due to political misinformation and personally motivated opposition, the local community activists became involved in the political process. They publicly criticized the owner as a land mongrel who only wanted to build his warehouse. Over a three-year period, the residents on the lake aggressively opposed any filling of the lake, preventing the owner from adding any additional land to the property that he rightfully owned. Subsequently, the owner relied on his architect and engineer to develop a revised plan for the site that would not require any variances or filling of the lake. Ultimately, the architect and engineers developed a site plan that allowed the owner to place a larger warehouse on the site without filling the lake area nor requiring any variances or zoning changes.
After three years of submitting applications for site plan approval, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of cost to the owner, the municipality finally decided that they would approve the revised plans (they had no factual or legal basis to justify their previous opposition). Due to the impact of the political emotion that was injected into this project, the public and community now have a larger warehouse without any of the green area originally proposed by the owner. The end result is that the public lost out because of an emotional response generated by false perceptions of self-serving individuals with a sole political agenda. Today, there is no walkway or greenway along the waterside and the landscaping and park area that the owner had offered to provide was never again offered. Moreover, the city lost significant revenue for the undeveloped land. These events demonstrate how politicians who cater to public emotion, rather than using the professional judgment and skills of engineers or architects to present the facts to the public for proper evaluation, can demolish the benefits to the public at large.
Project 2: Water Plant Expansion
Another example of political maneuvering versus engineering solutions concerning infrastructure improvements occurred when the city was required to expand its water plant capacity. This expansion is required when water usage reaches 75 percent of the plant capacity. When this occurs, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state regulations require that a municipality begin planning for a water plant expansion. In order to obtain authorization to plan for an expansion, a cost estimate must be developed, requiring planning for a utility rate increase to support and fund the mandated expansion.
As you can anticipate, the timing of any proposed utility rate increase is never popular. This was compounded by the fact that the elected body supported a reduction in these rates. However, after a lengthy debate, and by providing a complete understanding of the facts and potential consequences that would result by not issuing the resolution to expand the plant, engineers were able to convince the elected body to vote in favor of expanding the plant. This scenario demonstrates how the elected officials and engineers can successfully balance facts and public emotion in times of conflict. Although both official parties want to do the right thing, the elected officials have a greater tendency to base their decisions on doing what they perceive the people want, while the engineer is primarily focused on doing what is best based on the facts.
Project 3: Community Development Plans
Another example of emotional impact on technical planning occurred when we attempted to develop a long-range community redevelopment plan for our beach area. Our municipality has approximately two miles of oceanfront beach in the South Florida area. The beach area was showing signs of age and deterioration but still retained a personality and charm as a small beach community. Understandably, many of the residents did not want any redevelopment to the beach area. However, this antiquated area had several older duplexes and hotels that produced very little tax revenue to the community but had a negative aesthetic impact on the beach area.
This beach area had the capability of being redeveloped on larger parcels of land for building more expensive residential or mixed-use structures. Proposals were presented to the elected body, and it was determined that a community redevelopment plan should be evaluated.
A community redevelopment area plan is structured so that the incremented tax revenue collected in the community development area—above what is currently collected—can be applied and remain in that area for future improvements. For example, if a building was taxed at $50,000 per year and you improved the building to enhance its assessed value to $100,000, then the tax increment would be retained and used only in the Community Redevelopment Agency. This incremental revenue is called the Tax Increment Fund. The revenue can then be used by the community to improve the sidewalks, street, drainage, and other infrastructure as well as provide low-cost loans to shop owners to improve their properties.
Although the community redevelopment plan was passed and accepted by the local municipality and the county, many residents were opposed to the construction or variances associated with the buildings in that area. Objection from the public has resulted in stagnation of the building redevelopment plans to the beach area. If multiple-use buildings had been allowed to be built, a significant amount of revenue would have been available to the city. The city would then have been able to use these revenues to develop revenue bonds to build parking garages and other public structures that would help improve and alleviate the congestion that has been a problem for many years. These projects were denied based upon emotion and misinformation by a small group of local activists who affected the public opinion. This rejection has created a significant parking shortage, significantly impacted the business community, and severely limited opportunities for any growth in the area.
Today there still remains a need for a logical plan that will solve the parking problem along the beach. As engineers, our first recommendation would be to build a garage to accommodate the infrastructure and provide for controlled business growth and revenue while improving the quality of life for our community.
As you can see, all of these public projects and processes have a critical requirement for engineering and problem-solving expertise that is severely lacking in many of our elected officials and community boards. The more successful we as engineers are in influencing this process through public service, the more we can have a direct positive influence in our communities.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Leadership and Management in Engineering
Volume 8 • Issue 4 • October 2008
Pages: 179 - 182
Copyright
© 2008 ASCE.
History
Published online: Oct 1, 2008
Published in print: Oct 2008
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