The playoffs that preceded the World Series ended with a New York Mets-St. Louis Cardinals game that was classic baseball. There was something for everyone.
There was a phenomenal over-the-wall catch by Mets leftfielder Endy Chavez that would make anyone’s highlights list. This was followed a few innings later by another hit to the same place, just a few feet higher, which put St. Louis ahead in the top of the ninth.
The game ended with a kind of dream sequence re-enactment. There was a time when there wasn’t a kid in America who hadn’t daydreamed of being at bat with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, in front of thousands of screaming fans, waiting for the pitch and knowing that the game is in your hands.
Apparently, though, pitchers dream, too. And it was St. Louis closer Adam Wainwright’s dream that won out that evening, leaving Carlos Beltran, who earlier in the game had hit a home run, to stare at a curve ball as it went by for a called strike that ended the game.
It was fitting that the conflicting dreams of pitcher and batter collided in Shea Stadium. Shea was the last of an impressive number of dreams brought to reality by New York City’s public works impresario, Robert Moses. While the stadium is now somewhat time-worn and is set to be replaced in 2009, it was quite advanced in its day. The stands were on powered rollers and could be moved to reconfigure the field for football, and Shea was built to house a National League baseball team to replace the dreams broken when the Brooklyn Dodgers skedaddled to L.A.
Although Moses was a public official – at one point he held twelve different city government posts simultaneously, taking salary from none – he was a dreamer and an entrepreneur at heart. It was he who, quite literally, created the landscape of New York City and altered forever its expectations, and ours, about the role that public works such as bridges, roads, parks, swimming pools and golf courses could, and should, play in urban life.
His impressive legacy, however, is not an unalloyed joy. Moses was an unusual person, certainly in the political world, in that he wanted power but was disinterested in personal financial gain. The kind of power he wanted involved financial independence, control over revenue streams substantial enough to underwrite his public works dreams.
When he was made parks commissioner, he expanded his concept of that job to include linking the parks with roads. And by calling those roads “parkways” he obtained authority and control over their design and construction. Eventually, by creating funding authorities using the credit of the city but outside its political control, he achieved more financial independence than any other public official in the United States, then or since.
And that is where the trouble lies.
Moses was imaginative, effective and likeable – three characteristics that are seen together in one individual only rarely. And he was neither self-absorbed nor consumed by greed or political ambition. For his time, perhaps any time, he was sui generis – one of a kind.
For Moses, the financial independence techniques he pioneered resulted in a remarkable and exemplary level of public facilities. In the hands of lesser beings in our time, though, these techniques are less inspiring; in fact, they are downright dangerous.
The goals of many government- sponsored projects today seem to include public funding in perpetuity, insulated from political control. Large public projects used to begin with a ground-breaking ceremony. Now, the real beginning involves taking a sledgehammer and breaking off the handle of the funding cut-off valve.
Another key element in today’s public projects lies in using Humpty Dumpty project descriptions. (Humpty was fond of what he called “portmanteau” words, which meant whatever he wanted them to mean.) This allows the project show runners to reshape and redefine a voter-approved project as they see fit, without apparent limit.
It would appear that local politicians actually prefer independent projects, for these allow the elected officials to “get things done” without actually having to take responsibility for them.
As these projects get bigger and bigger, they become economic forces unto themselves, and yet are structured to be largely out of reach of voter control. There is nothing about this issue on the ballot this Election Day, but since voting is on our minds, this would be a good time to consider it.
We should be thinking about using the power of our votes to restructure the public works process, especially those billion-dollar babies that our grandchildren will be paying for. Public projects should be the realization of a dream, not a nightmare.
James McCusker is a Bothell economist, educator and consultant. He also writes “Business 101” monthly for the Snohomish County Business Journal.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
