The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat: Praeterea censeo Carthaginem esse delendam...

The Rules of Bureaucracy

Rule #O: "The Rules of Bureaucracy are mutable, non-canonical, non-ordinal, and contradictory, except in the cases where they are not."
Rule #1: "Document everything you do; if you didn't write it down, it didn't happen."
Rule #2 [The Sixty Minutes Rule]: "Never do anything that would cause Ed Bradley, Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Steve Croft, Leslie Stahl, or even Andy Rooney to persue you down a hallway with a camera crew."
Rule #3: "Nothing Simple is Ever Easy"
Rule #4: "It's about the money; follow the money."
Rule #5: "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Rule #6: "Politics is the enemy of good government."
Rule #7: "The biggest detriment to public service is the public."
Rule #8: "The second biggest detriment to public service is the service."
Rule #9: "There's a reason; there's ALWAYS a reason."
Rule #10: "The Law is a harsh mistress: The rigorous and exacting application of which can benefit of society when used correctly to advance good policy and block bad, and be the bane of society when used incorrectly to advance bad policy and block good."
Rule #11: "Public service often involves waking up in the morning, opening up the newspaper, and discovering that someone, somewhere out there thinks that you're a dickhead."
Rule #12: "No one really knows what you do."
Rule #13 [Luke's Rule]: "No one ever acts like the bastard they really are."
Rule #14: "Bureaucracy endures."
Rule #15: "The longer you work in bureaucracy, the more Catch-22 resembles non-fiction."
Rule #16: "Politicians are not smarter than you."
Rule #18: "Money is not created equal."
Rule #19: "Mediocrity is normalcy."
Rule #17: "Within any bureaucratic structure, resources (e.g. people, money, knowledge, etc.) are not distributed uniformly."
Rule #20: "Don't assume a fiduciary liability without a committed resource allocation."
Rule #21: "If you do your job and obey the law, they can't reasonably fire you."
Rule #22: "The Budget will always be wrong."
Rule #23: "Always sign in blue."
Rule #24: "A Bureaucrat must be able to explain and justify his/her actions to laymen without resorting to the phrase 'because the Rules say so.'"
Rule #25: "Never voluntarily relinquish control of an original document."
Rule #26: "Sometimes you just have to say 'Screw the rules'"
Rule #27: "Change sucks."
Rule #28: "Sometimes the answer is 'No.'"
Rule #29: "It is very easy to make difficult decisions when no one has a clue what's going on."
Rule #30: "If you hang around long enough, eventually you will become an expert in something."
Rule #31: "Data, technology, and automatic processes can never completely supplant human interaction."
Rule #32: "Cover thine own ass."
Rule #33: "It's not real until it has its own acronym."
Rule #34:There is nothing more dangerous than an elected, resourceful idiot.
Rule #35: It will always take longer than expected.
Rule #36: Coming Soon...

Friday, February 06, 2009

Praeterea censeo Carthaginem esse delendam...

Here's a story that makes me all giddy inside:

Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato said today that consolidating the state's 501 school districts into 100 -- as suggested by Gov. Ed Rendell Wednesday -- might be a bit extreme, but he would favor consolidating the county's 130 municipalities into 43.

"There are probably 20 or 30 municipalities that are financially bankrupt and probably shouldn't exist," Mr. Onorato told the Airport Area Chamber of Commerce during a breakfast address this morning. "I think we should just wrap them into the school districts. There's no reason we shouldn't have 43 municipalities."

Wilmerding? GONE!

Braddock? GONE!

Haysville? Wait. Where's Haysville? Doesn't matter: GONE!

Mount Friggin' Oliver? GONE!

Watch the County go from this...

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To this...

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

And while it's not perfect, it's certainly a nice 66% decrease in useless municipalities.

Sadly, however:

Mr. Onorato's statement was more of a concept than a plan...

Boo! Here I was sharpening my pitchforks and lighting up my torches. Shame on you Danny for getting my hopes up.

You'd still better sleep with one eye open Mt. Oliver. I'm coming for you.

2 comments:

Mark Rauterkus said...: Gov Rendell made the statement of mergers for the benefit of school districts. Onorato made the statement without any school district merger and no benefit there. Those two are on different planets.; 7:42 AM
Jason Togyer said...: If you think for one minute that the residents of (for instance) White Oak Borough will go for any plan to merge them into the City of McKeesport --- even though they already share a school district, water system, sewer system --- you need to think again.

The mayor and council of White Oak will dig a moat and fill it with angry alligators first.

And Dan O's head will be stuck on a pike at the intersection of Long Run Road and Route 48 just to warn the other politicians.; 2:35 PM

The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat

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Friday, February 06, 2009

Praeterea censeo Carthaginem esse delendam...

2 comments:

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