SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY REGIONAL BLUEPRINT INFRASTRUCTURE FINANCING OPPORTUNITY

Having not being exposed to many “lessons learned” from Private Public Partnerships (P3) recently and after observing the new spate of literature about the condition of our infrastructure in America, from a variety of disciplines on the internet, what could one glean from the people at the edge of new discoveries in this realm, face to face?

My hope was to find some new answers to better define the knowledge base criteria used to design with or add to our urban rural, suburban, city and regional areas. After all does not the “Golden Rule” of money together with spoken policy come after design?

The people invited to give papers were drawn from many States. Surprisingly none originated from California. The attendees like me were folk representing citizens, students, and professionals who had been somewhat involved in the subject by curiosity or had interest from a practical front line experience point of view.

The Director Richard G Little, Keston Institute for Public Finance and Infrastructure Policy at USC was master of ceremonies. The papers presented covered many issues of concern. Each delivered a creative view of these affairs at hand. They included in common the following aspects. They all broadly addressed a Financial, Management and Legislative Crisis. Rising out of all these enumerated concerns, some others were also clearly identified. Mostly they appeared to prescribe a need for the people involved to be more conversant with clarity of understanding of the terms, conditions and standards of engagement toward a fruitful P3 partnership.

Policy “wonks” are a little estranged from the meaning of Design First for the Future. Each of the decision makers involved in this triad of apartheid, first the Public Sector “Politbureau” and second the Private Sector “Developer” with an array of consultant expertise; together, have to serve the third the “Publics” at large, in these P3 projects.

The rotational changes and people determining who might be the leadership “Point Person” over time, context and sequence become frayed in all the three above entities. People with issue differences are limited by unequal access to process whether legitimate or illegitimate. Frustrations were evident amongst the speakers to a point that although P3 negotiations focused on best possible results they were not adequately served with effective communication means. The three interchangeable “leadership” interests appear therefore to be bent on thwarting each other’s innovations in project delivery, though the term of the project.

Placing boundaries around an elusive future P3 project is obviously difficult. This may only be tempered by better internal and external communications. The disparity of the required knowledge base for all decision makers still seems to be a critical precondition.

The most interesting lesson learned was the Macro Systems Engineering course I attended in 1969 at UCLA. This afforded an overall perspective of the most invaluable elements in these affairs. Absolute interdisciplinary interaction is essential. What is most invigorating in reflection of the past exchange was the fact that the source of such endeavors and invention in such matters was drawn from USA intelligence. Now these current P3 “experts” at USC are drawing on global resources to help create a better “playing field” for P3. However this new conduct sets itself in our global economy. This event shows a need for greater creative intellectual courage in order to re-constitute mobility infrastructure amongst us all in the USA for the next generation to come. Our rise in urban design should be about confidence, and endorse a fierce culture of education and achievement and a burning desire to succeed. This energy appears to be slowly subsiding.

“Tool” development for better assessing P3 project prospects needs to be used, explored and enhanced further to test their utility. A common accord amongst the speakers was the problem of refereeing P3 partnership negotiations. It is a “people” problem more that that of a Financial, Management and Legislative one. The cycle of people changes over the course of a P3 contract from inception to fruition changes radically. This reminds one of the plights found in legislators “term limits” versus the possibility of longevity needs to father decision makers judgment for a 30-100 year period.

This necessary stream of decision maker’s activity thus fiddles with management control and in so doing prevents flexibility for a satisfactory passage along the P3 project duration. The cause of flaws is that the incremental decision makers cannot accept the changing context and reality sequence of internal and external uncontrollable events.

Contracts have tendencies to freeze projects into a framework with some flexible future conditions on signing. However construction implementation offers a stream of normal hiccups during implementation. It is observed in general that the keystone of most written agreement lacks the respect of anticipating future day-to-day changes for example in the construction management process. (Boston’s Big Dig Project) These happenstances appear habitually in the process of ongoing interpretation of future changes in reality of the tri-apartheid cycle partner’s involvement in specific P3 projects. The problem of controlling consecutive decision maker’s judgments can only be resolved by a factual history of events leading to them individually in any project process. This observation might at least help explain some relevant factors to new decision makers as they continue their respective takeover responsibilities.

Underlying P3 decision maker’s actions is the ego empowerment of leadership in both sectors and public perception of the specific P3 project results. These are measures of ethics. Honesty, faith, trust and morality of the participants over the project period, should show the timely targeted steps accomplished and to be accomplished, or where “things” might have failed. Who amongst the triad has the final empowerment in the agreed upon terms of contractual agreement with a P3 project evolution is therefore a dilemma. This possibly requires an independent third party auditor for collective decision-making monitoring and recording the details. A metric of risk assignment should be openly and transparently revealed between both P3 partners in order to accountable and responsible for the long-term placement of the project in the reality of facing the public.

These circumstances and underlying interpretation by newly founded decision makers of project success or failure, should be based on facts that they can then be shared with the public at large to avoid misunderstandings of possible unintended consequences to windfall or wipeout. The status of project preparatory negotiations, management and operation of construction, decision making monitoring and post assessment evaluations can then be communicated in a timely manner to all involved.

Our need to all learn a better way of developing P3’s should be to create an evaluation tool that can measure quantitatively the elements of appraisal, estimation, valuation and costs. This tool must aid and abet key considerations and judgment. What rational and logical events cause decision makers to change their minds to either advance or stop P3 projects needs to be revealed. Opinions can pull-down intentions whereas review and reflection of past to present P3 decision making facts, should not be easily refuted on review by decision makers whether in the present or in the future.

An interesting feature exposed during this single day deliberation was “the force of attraction should exceed the force of rejection”. This needs better clarification. The behavioral activity amongst the participants still shows that “cliques” are prevalent. This is most unfortunate as cross referencing between disciplines uninvited to those that were uninvited should be somewhat an expression of the reality of P3 formation and why the advance in this sphere of intellectual endeavors have been strained and limited in it’s achievements.

This overall review of P3 is deserving of application to the SJVB regional plan decision makers. Yet so far there is a stark absence of concern in the delivery of a viable urban design infrastructure as an opportunity for a self initiated P3 process for the Great Valley to the State of California. More details for consideration will be forthcoming in the next article.

Graham Kaye-Eddie

Master Urban Designer