Outsourcing to India Will Privatize and Streamline Process
In a surprise email that arrived two days late because of a website blackout during the City Hall grand opening, department heads were informed that the issuing of all city building permits was to be outsourced and moved overseas to India.
The 4,000 employees working in the city’s building division were told that they had become redundant and given pink slips at their 3p.m. break yesterday. Although the shocked employees were obviously confused and disoriented after the news, the rest of the day’s productivity did not suffer.
“Unfortunately it was a move that had to be made after discovering a pending Macy’s permit for a building on Santa Clara St. that dated back to 1958,” said one department head.
Outsourcing expert Tim Adams of Sailor & Sirena Offshore Consultants, LLC, says the move to a call center in Bangalore should streamline the whole permit process and cut the turnaround time in half. “By eliminating the combined 236,000 between-floor trips it takes employees everyday to coordinate the staff members working on approvals, we will cut off an average of one month’s time per application. This will allow the city to refer to processing times in human years for the first time in a decade—and that’s nothing to bark at.”
Several companies rumored to be responding to the city’s Request For Proposal for the granting of the lucrative international shipping contract to carry the paperwork back and forth to India include FedEx, UPS, and Norcal.
Okay; you’re kidding; right?
This is not a funny as John makes it. And actually has some sense, as Indian Engineers could provide value in this area given training in the California Building Code.
What is not so funny if the fast-track Counter-2-Council initiative by the Mayor and Vice-Mayor hitting the table at City Hall next week. Little mention of it here in this blogsite, but expect major proposals regarding the City’s development process to race through the Council approval process to set the stage for Coyote, North San Jose, and high density infill housing that has run-up against innercity resistance. The committee (touted as representative of the small business community, but appointed with the usuals), will forward their recommendations to the Mayor Monday for an all day thing later in the week. Expect a new development proposal called “Development Services” much like Alloways “Private Development Department”, a transfer of the General Planning Division to somewhere in the Manager’s Office (closer to Joe), and in the near future an attempt to get around CEQA by exploring San Jose’s status as a “Charter City.”
Do I need say more?
Diane-
Am I kidding that permits take a long time, or that the process will be moved to India?
Unfortunately this is a satirical column and things will remain status quo in the Planning Department.
John.
Careful dude. These days it’s sometimes hard to know when these things are satirical or culled from the day’s headlines:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/12962633.htm
I work in Hawaii as well as here in the Bay area. What a shame. The city is making a big mistake as the 3000 people are not the only people affected. Permit expiditors and contrctors alike will suffer.
Mal-
The two have to be related…with a little more research, you may win a Pulitzer.
#2 – Thanks for raising the issue of the nearly secret Counter-2-Council group. This another Gonzo/Chavez attempt to eliminate as much review as possible and jam development proposals through the process as fas as possible. If Gonzo/Chavez get their way, this will certainly benefit their developer friends. Since the city is currently run by the development community anyway, this will only worsen the quality of life for the rest of us.
If you object to the continuing secret government in SJ, contact your Councilperson, write the paper, pay attention at election time, etc.
It stinks around here.
Counter to Council working draft recommendations See
http://www.unscc.org/ctoc – more posted later
San Jose’s General ( Exception ) Plan now has more exceptions than planning and is very badly out of date due to
-North San Jose, Evergreen Coyote Valley, Communications Hill , Transit Corridor high density Development and hundreds of general plan amendments involving thousands of acres and more exceptions under 2 acre rule
General Plan needs to be updated NOW and every 8 years starting 1 year before the new Mayor’s term of office so the Planning and Land Use opinions / recommendations / vision with actual examples of future planning and development can be discussed by all of San Jose’s Mayor candidates and heard by the voters prior to when they chose the new Mayor.
Choosing a new Mayor with no idea of their actual planning and land use vision and proposed projects leads to potentially marginal city planning and poor or inadequate plan implementations.
Mayor and City Council control the Planning and Development process and are influenced by compelling needs for new tax revenue, additional local jobs and the requests of the business and development community who support them in their election campaigns
Planning and Land Use (PLU) issues (transit and traffic issues) are #1 interest for many residents and neighborhood associations. Many neighborhood associations were organized to address these issues since they affect a family’s quality of life, health, safety and the family’s greatest investment – their home.
Current planning process is time consuming ( 6-18 months for a project or longer ), unpredictable, costly and does not easily allow for easy and routine involvement of esidents,neighborhoods and community organizations.
Many times the residents and neighborhood leaders do not understand the complex process and need training which is now available, what has been previously approved is not clear and should be discussed at each public meetings as background with proposed project or public policy details easily available and published ( 1-2 weeks simple and 3-4 weeks complex projects ) so residents can review proposals.
San Jose has No Master City Public Meeting Calendar so that the residents can easily be aware of public meetings and have sufficient time to review details prior to meeting
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UNSCC-NEWS/links/Current_San_Jose_Nei_001107813486/
See San Jose Visitors and Convention Event calendar at http://www.sanjose.org/events
San Jose in the opinion of many residents has not invested adequately in public infrastructure like other cities for many reasons:
– San Jose tax revenue per person ( capita) is lower that most surrounding cities,
– San Jose has less jobs per resident that generate business tax revenue than other cities
– San Jose has a Smart Growth policy but many approved projects do not meet the Smart Growth Audit Test so only minimum infrastructure is built
– City Council’s emphasis is new development in new areas require more infrastructure when we can not finance adequate infrastructure in existing neighborhoods that are below standard
– San Jose can not expect developers to pay for years of under investment since it will make our housing more unaffordable and economically uncompetitive with other local or California cities
A community wide effort over 1-2 years with everyone participating is needed to examine and discuss what we want for San Jose on Planning and Land Use and other important issues at places and times that people can actually attend unlike many past ” open public meetings ” during the work day with little wide spread notice resulting in a “public meeting without the public” and “ the real decisions done before the meetings”
We have made an number of worthwhile changes but more education on the issues, alternatives and our future challenges so that everyone can knowledgably participate in an open public discussions to improve San Jose and solve the challenges we as individuals, families and San Jose faces in the coming years so that we have a safe, high quality of life great city with a wide range of well paying jobs for our residents and we can afford to pay for needed city services.
I have been very busy lately but will in the next 1-2 weeks post more comments and information on
-United Neighborhood 12th Annual Neighborhood Conference 8 am – 3 pm
-Neighborhood and Community Public Policy Forum – 9 am – noon
both on Saturday November 12, at the new San Jose City Hall See http://www.unscc.org/conference
Wow, Ed Rast! A novel!
The whole city government is a satire. When are people going to figure THAT out?
Why hasn’t someone started a move to remove Gonzo. this Mayor is a hugh joke just as your column is, but the Mayor joke is costing the city of San Jose. Bet Norcal gets the bid. That will be good for the people working in India they will get a pay raise that no one k nows about.
Dear San Jose:
First, let me answer #10. There’s been no serious move to oust the mayor for three reasons: 1) The council lacks the courage and the intellect to do anything, 2) We have an undedicated press in San Jose, 3) San Jose has a woefully apathetic citizenry.
Something very interesting and unusual occurred at last Tuesday night’s city council meeting. A large number of San Jose residents attended the meeting to speak out against a development project in the cambrian area. Speaker after speaker voiced their opposition to the project citing concerns about traffic and questioning whether or not the city’s studies were adequate. Of course their concerns went unheard and the council voted unanimously to approve the project.
What was interesting and unusual is that the people booed and hissed as they left the council chambers. It was hilarious to hear Mayor Corruptus thanking the crowd for their “feedback” when the only thing that you could hear were boos! At one point when Mayor Corruptus tried to quiet the crowd by saying “Thank You…Thank You…,” some citizen shouted back, “For What?!”
Maybe the natives are getting restless. Or, maybe, block by block, the citizens of San Jose are begining to realize that the health of democracy in their city is quite poor.
pete campbell
So that’s why Macy’s was” forced” to go to Valley Fair…
2 minutes vs Memorandum’s of Understanding.
Let’s see… how do those usually turn out?
But what if the less equal citizen speakers were to combine their 2 minutes with mooncakes for the council? Could the humble mooncake be enough to tip the balance of power?
2 minutes + mooncakes > Memo’s of Understanding?
At the current rate of downward spiral and rising disgust, I predict there will soon be chicken wire (ala “Blues Brothers”) between the council and public at hearings.
I really feel that we should outsource government-imagine the surprised looks on their faces! I wonder who would get the tax incentive? Gonzo meet Guptazola, he likes your palace…
I vote for oursourcing. They could do a lot better job in all areas than what is being done now. Nothing like a little competition to make people perform their job better…
Better yet, we should outsource our honorable mayor and the vice mayor. The Indians would do a much better job than both of them. Saving tax payers even more money and less embarrasement….
Pete # 11:
You forgot a few reasons:
It costs a lot to have an recall and a subsequent election where only a few people bother to vote—e.g. our new Ms Nguyen “elected” by fewer than 10k people
If Gonzo just left office, the spineless and ineffectual council might have to appoint someone. Wow, how would that work?
We could just wait until he’s termed out, and then what cool choices we have—Cortese, Reed, and, the oh-so-coy about her plans Chavez. None of them have had the courage to take a stand. But that’s what politicians are about these days. Hire a pollster to see which way the wind blows, then put a tiny little toe in the water as a flyer and guage the results in another poll. God forbid they’d actually come down foursquare on anything.
I can’t remeber that small passage in the Bible completely, but it talks about vomiting out the lukewarm. Hmm, if we try to swallow our current crop of pols, we’d all be on the porcelain bus for days on end.
Let’s hire someone at big bucks to study the grand jury report on Norcal, saith the council. Last I heard, that contract will be extended two months…Wanna bet that it’s not for free? But it’s already in the grand jury report, so we’re paying big bucks to re-invent the wheel. Thanks alot councilmembers. I’d rather have better roads and health care for kids than study that Norcal contract again and again and again until the so-called independent expert gives up the conclusion they want, which will be some wishy-washy nonsense.
Nobody can make a decision any more. And they call themselves leaders!!!
hi!!!
i have a question for you all. Can somebody send me some photos of Communications Hill?. Is for a work at the university of architecture…i need photos of the houses and a map…if somebody can do that i’ll be eternally thank…
my english is a little bad, but i hope you understand all.
thank you!!!!