The good people of Noe Valley won’t have to endure much longer.
City officials vowed Friday that they will accept a donated modular toilet for the neighborhood’s lovely town square — and that they’ve eliminated much of the bloat in their initial, stomach-churning budget estimate for the installation.
Now the long-awaited toilet won’t cost as much as a house in San Francisco — just as much as a substantial remodel. And it will be operational by the end of this summer, much sooner than the original projections.
The bathroom brouhaha is happily coming to an end, but let’s hope this is just the beginning of a much deeper investigation into why San Francisco’s $14 billion annual budget seems to be buying us so little. And finding ways to cut costs, especially as the city faces looming budget deficits.
“It’s not easy navigating the city’s procurement and construction processes, which of course is of small consolation when your 2-year-old needs a diaper change,” said Phil Ginsburg, general manager of the city’s Recreation and Parks Department, in an explanation.
Crucially, he pledged to support efforts to prevent future projects from throwing such a stench at the city government. Originally slated to cost $1.7 million, the 150-square-foot, single-toilet bathroom wouldn’t open until 2025, an incredible waste of time and money that drew ridicule across the country.
“We will fully support the efforts of our city leaders to make small public works projects like this — which are not always saved by philanthropy — less costly and more efficient,” Ginsburg said in the statement, referring to $200 million private philanthropy the department has received over the past 12 years to help realize park projects. He did not respond to a request for further comment.
The Noe Valley toilet saga began in October when Assembly Member Matt Haney announced he had secured $1.7 million in government funding to build the toilet and was planning a press conference to celebrate. The town square was built in 2016 on a converted church car park – complete with plumbing but no toilet – and neighbors had been asking for a bathroom for years.
But when that column raised questions about the crappy cost and schedule, Haney canceled his potty party and Gov. Gavin Newsom put toilet funds on hold until the city could install the dresser without flushing so much money down the drain.
Chad Kaufman, president of the Public Restroom Co., offered to give the city a free modular bathroom. And his buddy Vaughan Buckley, CEO of Volumetric Building Cos., promised he would provide free architectural and engineering assistance to get the site ready. They also agreed to fund the installation and hire local union workers.
But three months later, the city still hadn’t accepted his potty gift on a silver platter. And as I told you last week, Rec and Park Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, representing Noe Valley, said that even with the donated toilet, the cost to the city could still be close to $1 million.
It was all enough to send San Francisco taxpayers, who yearn for a responsive, productive, and cost-conscious city government, to their tums.
But sweet relief has finally arrived. Last week’s column bemoaning the still-exorbitant costs may have prompted Rec and Park to take action. Because on Friday she announced movement.
It will take over Kaufman’s toilet and associated plumbing, which together is worth $425,000. Rec and Park also appears to have saved $491,000 from its own estimated costs, eliminating construction line items, project management fees, architectural and engineering fees, regulatory costs and other items, according to a department press release.
The department said it still has $300,000 to come up in costs, including hiring a landscaping firm to create construction illustrations depicting building details, site improvements, and mechanical, electrical, and plumbing work. Rec and Park said it would in-house permit and contract management and coordinate environmental reviews and permits itself. Usually she pays other city authorities for these services.
The goal, the department said, is to convince the state to release the $1.7 million to cover the $300,000 cost of the Noe Valley toilet and the rest to buy one modular bathroom for Precita Park.
That shows it’s possible to install toilets for $725,000 — a million less than originally estimated. It’s still an insanely high number, but not as outrageously as initially projected. And it also shows that the timeline can be significantly shortened.
Because the donated restroom and installation are gifts, the city can accept them, although the Public Restroom Co. is headquartered in Nevada, a no-go along with 29 other states for city contracts due to their stance on abortion rights, voting rights, or LGBTQ rights.
Mandelman has asked the city attorney general to draft legislation that would remove the contract ban in 30 states, saying it hurts San Francisco financially and fails to convince officials in those other states to be more tolerant. He would keep the ban on city-sponsored travel to those states.
He has also asked city manager Carmen Chu to draft a recommendation streamlining the process for signing small contracts in hopes of making projects like the toilet cheaper and faster. He expects to use the recommendation for bills he will present this spring.
“That’s a better result,” Mandelman told me of the $725,000 toilet, which will arrive 18 months earlier than expected. “But the whole exercise has shown that there are ways that the city could drastically reduce costs if we were to be more cost conscious.”
Supervisor Myrna Melgar said she believes part of the problem stems from Mohammed Nuru’s corrupt leadership of San Francisco’s public works and that he regularly surcharged the cost of his department’s services to other departments, rates now considered normal, although they are excessive. (Nuru was sentenced to seven years in prison last year after pleading guilty to federal fraud charges.)
Melgar expects to soon receive the full accounting of the projects she has requested from Public Works, which she will use as the basis for a hearing on the Noe Valley toilet and other overpriced projects.
“After you published that toilet story, I heard from a number of departments who said, ‘Keep it up!'” she said, meaning they believe the contracting process is also broken and need help fixing the issue .
She said it’s critical that a city that wants to build 82,000 housing units by 2031 — and that also needs to improve its public transit system — figure out how to build much cheaper and faster.
“How are we supposed to manage all this if we can’t do a toilet?” she said.
Haney said he also takes lessons in toilet troubles.
“When the city asks me to bring funds home for important projects, I ask a lot more questions,” he told me. “But hopefully the city will also ask more questions of itself.”
He said he will be at Noe Valley Town Square this summer to see the first day of the toilet in action. Call it Party Party #2. I asked who he thought should have the honor of the first flush.
“Definitely a kid who grew up near Town Square and should have had a bathroom five years ago,” he said.
Sounds like a plan to me.
Heather Knight is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf
