We got a good pre-Ophelia dousing yesterday, which was welcome – it was only the second day of rain this whole summer, and the storm helped to lower the deficit.
The forecasters are still not 100% sure of Ophelia’s exact track Northeast, but it looks like we are in for wind and more rain from tonight through Saturday.
The news of continued state and federal largesse to the evacuees at Camp Edwards has friends of mine frustrated and even a little angry.
A letter in yesterday’s Cape Cod Times said that “According to the ”Human Condition” study undertaken by Barnstable County, 29 percent of Cape residents are in need.”
I’ve looked for a copy of the report online, because that high number is shocking, as is the failure of the business community, and government, to acknowledge it.
I’m starting to understand why things don’t get done in the private and non-profit sector. There are certainly exceptions – a local group I’ve been working with for the past couple of months, the Barnstable County 4-H, is very entrepreneurial and results-oriented.
Yesterday, though, I got my ears pinned back by a woman from another, large non-profit organization, who berated me for what she considers a lack of planning.
In her world, it takes many months, many meetings and lots of cash to get anything done.
The fact that Massachusetts was able to drop $15 million dollars in less than a month for the evacuees at Edwards didn’t enter the conversation.
In other words, things can get done, and fast, in the public sector, if the leadership wants it that way. Government can provide health care, housing, transportation and jobs – if the leadership wants it to.
It seems like the list of horrors that grows daily about the mismanagement of the chaos in New Orleans has everything to do with lousy communication, bureaucratic red tape, a CYA attitude and a basic fear that people in need will run amok if given a chance.
I don’t believe that Bush is anti-government or anti-big government. I think he and his team see taxpayer dollars as a gigantic gravy train for their pals, competent or not.
Remarkably, they have gotten away with the consequences of an evolving record of incompetence, whether its Halliburton’s cost overruns, the war in Iraq, or the Katrina disaster.
The Bush appointment of independent auditors to prevent corruption in post-Katrina spending is a joke. From the brief history so far, it looks like this is going to become another pork barrel boondoggle for Friends of Bush.
At the end of yesterday’s conversation with the woman from the non-profit, she said (and it might have been with a sigh), “Things are different with companies than they are with non-profits”.
That is certainly true, especially with small companies, because they HAVE to be different. If you don’t adapt quickly to change or respond quickly to opportunities, you are out of business. You don’t have hoardes of committees whose approval you need to coax and you don’t have to fill your day with meetings that generate a lot of talk and few outcomes.
The events of the last month or so have certainly provided food for thought.