The Galena Creek Bridge is an engineering marvel. The problem is the original contractor hired by the Nevada Department of Transportation to build the Galena Creek Bridge determined mid-way through the project that they didn't have the ability to get the job done. If I recall correctly, the company claimed that high winds whipping through the canyon below meant that building a bridge over Galena Creek wasn't possible.
So the contract to build the unbuildable bridge was re-awarded to the Fisher Sand & Gravel Company. Now the bridge they said couldn't be built has been redesigned and is scheduled for completion sometime in 2011.
What's that got to do with the price of tea in China?
Well, there's another highway project in Southern Nevada where a contract was awarded earlier this year to complete a section of the Las Vegas beltway. That contract was awarded to Las Vegas Paving by the all-Democrat members of the Clark County Commission despite the fact that Fisher Sand & Gravel (see "Galena Creek Bridge" above) bid $4 million less to do the same job.
And why did the seven Democrats on the Clark County Commission decide to pay one company $4 million more in taxpayer money than the other company? Because Las Vegas Paving is a union company and Fisher Sand & Gravel isn't, that's why. Apparently the government still has plenty of money to waste as long as it's wasted on welfare bailout subsidies for organized labor.
Of course, the commissioners couldn't be so crass as to admit this publicly. So they hid behind a secret opposition research report prepared by organized labor which purportedly showed that Fisher wasn't a "responsible bidder" for the project.
And what, pray tell, made the company building an unbuildable bridge not a "responsible bidder" to pave a flat stretch of highway outside Las Vegas? Well, according to Commissioner Tom Collins, the fact that a former Fisher executive was convicted of possession of child pornography way back in 2005 - before the company was hired to save the Galena Creek Bridge project.
To hear Mr. Collins tell it, if you're so irresponsible as to employ someone who likes to watch kiddie porn that means you can't be a responsible provider of a service to the government.
But wait a minute. If that's the criteria, shouldn't the Clark County school district close up shop? I mean, didn't police bust a Boulder City science teacher just last March on 64 counts of possession of child pornography?
Why is it that employing a sex deviate only disqualifies an extremely competent non-union job-creating construction company from a government project that would save the taxpayers
$4 million? Inquiring minds wanna know.
• Chuck Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, a limited-government public policy organization.