San Francisco regulators on Tuesday agreed to accept $1.7 million in state money originally earmarked for a public restroom that will now — after significant backlash — pay for a whopping two restrooms.
Despite the unanimous vote, several bosses said they weren’t sure city bureaucrats had eradicated their tendency to inflate costs and wrap projects in expensive red tape — even after this column broke the news that a small, one-stall toilet planned for the Noe Valley The Town Square should cost 1.7 million US dollars.
While a donated modular toilet significantly reduced the cost of the Noe Valley loo, the city says the No. 2 toilet planned for Precita Park in Bernal Heights will still cost $1.4 million and the rest of the state’s grant could use up.
“We all remember the $1.7 million toilet in Noe Valley Town Square. The price was so outrageous that the media started calling it Toiletgate,” supervisor Joel Engardio told his colleagues earnestly. “Well, I’m worried that we’re headed for Toiletgate 2.0. Now let’s talk about a $1.4 million restroom in Precita Park. That’s not a big improvement.”
But since the alternative was to turn down $1.7 million in free money, supervisors agreed to accept it — and also accept the donated, modular toilet for Noe Valley.
The dresser kerfuffle began in October when Member of Parliament Matt Haney planned a potty party in Noe Valley Town Square to announce winning a $1.7 million government grant to fund a long-awaited small bathroom there give. But when that column questioned how a toilet could cost as much as a single-family home with multiple bathrooms, Haney pulled the plug at his own event.
And Gov. Gavin Newsom joined the outrage, announcing that he would freeze federal funding until San Francisco could prove it could build a toilet without flushing so much money down the drain.
That’s when Chad Kaufman, president of the Public Restroom Co., saw an opportunity. He offered to donate a modular toilet to Noe Valley Town Square. And his buddy Vaughan Buckley, CEO of Volumetric Building Cos., said he would provide free architectural and engineering assistance to get the site ready. The men also said they would fund the installation and hire local union workers for the job.
In January, the Recreation and Park Department announced it would accept the $425,000 donation and spend $300,000 to hire a landscaping firm to create construction illustrations depicting building details, site improvements, and mechanical, electrical, and plumbing work.
The department said it would use the remainder of the state grant to install a modular toilet at Precita Park. That was apparently good enough to convince Newsom to release the $1.7 million in state funds, even though other California cities, including Emeryville, have installed restrooms in their public parks for far less. A Newsom spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.
A document prepared by the Recreation and Park Department and presented to supervisors before their vote showed that installing a modular bathroom at Precita Park would cost $1.4 million — $840,000 in construction costs and $560,000 in dollars in utilities. A spokesman for the department told me the number was wrong and the grant could potentially pay for both that bathroom and any leftover money to start building “future modular toilets at our parks.”
But Supervisor Hillary Ronen said she understands the $1.4 million estimate is correct and that it will be so expensive because there is no sanitation infrastructure at Precita Park. Nevertheless, she is glad that it is being built because desperate park users urinate on the neighbors’ front door.
“It feels like you could build an entire house for that much,” Ronen lamented, adding that it’s unclear when it will be built.
I asked Ronen if the city knew anything about Toiletgate. she sighed.
“Let me put it this way,” she told me. “More than ever, all city leaders are trying to bring prices down and remove red tape and other obstacles that drive prices up. … But as you know, there is still a long way to go.”
Haney said the Noe Valley toilet saga should be a lesson for the city’s political leaders and bureaucrats.
“San Francisco has to be able to get the fundamentals right,” he said. “I hope this was a wake-up call to fundamentally overhaul the city’s procurement process that’s causing things to cost so much and take so long.”
Supervisor Rafael Mandelman said the bathroom brouhaha shows departments’ propensity to opaquely bill each other for labor, duplication and craft budgets, even as they concede they are incorrect.
“It makes it really difficult to figure out what’s actually costing the government,” he said.
Even more costs come from well-meaning but ineffective ideological decisions like the city’s ban on contracting with companies in 30 states in hopes of changing those states’ laws on voting rights, abortion rights and LGBTQ rights. Regulators could repeal that program shortly after city studies showed it’s ratcheted up costs for San Francisco and done nothing to change other states’ laws.
“We almost need an office to dismantle well-intentioned ideas,” Mandelman told me before the toilet vote.
Let’s just hope it doesn’t need a private bathroom.
Reach Heather Knight: hknight@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @hknightsf
