76-15-B5

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Common Sense Bureaucrats

Transcript If you're a regular listener to these broadcasts, you know I'm a skeptic when it comes to bureaucracy. More often than not, when I point out bureaucratic blunders, bobbles and boondoggles it is more to illustrate the folly of believing that government can make better decisions for you than you can for yourself than it is to attack bureaucrats as people. Now it's true, some practitioners of the bureaucrat's art have given bureaucracy a bad name. Still, there are plenty of dedicated -- and efficient -- career government workers at every level. Just the other day I learned about one bureaucrat at the local level who used the kind of common sense we wish there were more of in Washington. In Pasadena, California the city fathers had decided to contract to have every house curbside numbered. It was a big order, some 30,000 residences. Bill Sato (SAH-TOE), a supervisor in the Department of Public Works, was given the assignment to find companies interested in doing the job and to make a recommendation. He heard from potential bidders who wanted to paint the house numbers the old-fashioned way, with big crews going around with stencils, brushing the numbers on one-by-one. Then he heard about Harwood Hellen, a former aerospace tool-and-die maker. It seems Mr. Hellen had assembled a one-man house numbering factory on wheels -- go-cart wheels to be exact! Bill Sato checked with neighboring cities and found they had had good results with Mr. Hellen and his go-cart. He recommended him to the city fathers. They said okay, and Hellen got the contract. How did the go-cart project work? Fine. Wearing a pith helmet, a sweatshirt with a big star on the front, gardening gloves and a big grin, Mr. Hellen zipped through the streets of Pasadena right on schedule. The whole city was done in 180 days! He painted up to 400 home's-worth on some days. Sitting low in his go-cart, Hellen had before him on the handlebars all the numbers he needed. Towed behind was a small generator. He would pull up to the curb (he was already sitting just above curb level), drop the right numbers into a frame; zip went his spray gun, then off he'd go to the next house. The moral of the story is that Mr. Hellen had built a better mousetrap and bureaucrat Bill Sato recognized it when he saw it. There's even hope in Washington. At the Federal Trade Commission Robert B. Rich, assistant director for evaluation of the Consumer Protection bureau is in the midst of what seems like a revolutionary idea: he's evaluating F.T.C. regulations to see if some aren't working and should be scrapped. Businessmen have long argued that some regulations aimed at helping consumers actually have the opposite effect. Regulators have rarely agreed, but now the F.T.C. is listening. Rich and his bureau are making "impact evaluations" on a range of Commission rulings. They have begun with -the so-called "unavailability" rule adopted six years ago after a rash of consumer complaints about retailers who advertise bargains but don't stock the promoted good. The rule says stores must stock reasonable amounts of discount-advertised goods, but the F.T.C. now worries that its rule may discourage retailers from holding bargain sales at all. Who knows, the F.T.C. may even decide that the market place isn't so bad after all. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening.		Details Batch Number 76-15-B5 Production Date 06/15/1977 Book/Page Online PDF Audio Youtube? No
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