More than ten years ago, leaders in West Haven, Connecticut (where the Greene of Barrett and Greene grew up), began planning a fabulous new development called “The Haven.” It is still described on its website as an “unprecedented waterfront destination that blends an inspired outlet experience with the ambience of luxury resort.”
Sounded like a dream to economic developers, and in preparation for the project, a section of the city was effectively decimated. So, far, however, nothing has happened. And the city is searching for a new developer.
Residents like Vicenta Gibbons are thoroughly angry. As she told us, “People were forced to move out of that area and were deceived, as well as the rest of West Haven by promises of a high-end mall area, where sheiks would fly in to shop . . . It is (now) blighted and depressing. We could have a wonderful venue for concerts, sports, etc., (as they have in Bridgeport) since it is right off the highway and certainly is a large enough parcel. The city could have been collecting taxes for several years now.”
We’ve been thinking a lot lately about trust in government, and it strikes us that delays like this are the kind of thing that detracts from people’s faith that their governments are functioning well. Once a project has been announced, when voters see that it hasn’t actually come to pass, that builds the sense that government simply doesn’t get things done.
Of course, a great many efforts do come to fruition on time and on budget, but given human nature, it’s often the ones that are sadly put off that stick in the public consciousness.
This phenomenon isn’t limited to giant infrastructure projects.
Consider the effort in Massachusetts to come up with proposals for a new state seal by July. Seems like the simplest of efforts, right? But it’s currently running months behind schedule. Worse yet back in 2021 a 20-member panel couldn’t come to any decisions about the new seal, after extending its deadline several times, prompting Secretary of State William Galvin to call the effort a “complete failure.” Debates currently go on, and nobody has any idea when a new seal will actually be accepted.
Then there was the effort we described a couple of weeks ago, in a Management Item about the delays in Colorado’s efforts to cut back its owned and leased space by 1 million square feet by July 1, 2025.
As we explained, the goal was overly optimistic, and difficult negotiations over long-term leases have meant that the state has pushed that goal back to July 1, 2027 (and cut back its goal to 800,000 square feet.)
There are a number of reasons why governments frequently don’t deliver on time. Sometimes, as in Colorado, one element of the project wasn’t taken into account at the outset. Other times, it’s a matter of underfinanced projects or politics intruding on an announced plan. There are also any number of challenging factors that weren’t predicted at the outset (like rising costs of concrete).
In an opinion column in Governing last year, Stephen Goldsmith, professor, former mayor of Indianapolis, and one-time deputy mayor of New York City, wrote that “officials should create a culture of urgency.” He cited the way former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg had “placed clocks on every conference room table, all set at a maximum of 30 minutes, in an attempt to render obsolete needlessly long meetings.”
The column quoted Brad Keywell, author of the "Story of Time," recommending “killing bad regulations and processes, halting obsolete approaches, which would be a refreshing, even thrilling, way of governing.”
There’s one more element at play here, and that’s the efforts that are simply unrealistic, or badly planned from day one.
The poster child for this kind of thing is the Second Avenue Subway in New York City, which was intended to run 8.5 miles along Manhattan’s east side. It was (believe it or not) initially proposed over 100 years ago, and the first tangible progress made was in 2017 when three new stations opened. There’s no guarantee that anything more will be done anytime soon. It effectively lives large in the minds of many old-time New Yorkers as an example of how big projects don’t get done.
There are no magic bullets to guarantee that government projects will be completed on time and plenty of hazards, as well, in setting highly unrealistic goals or rushing action without due consideration of potential negative consequences. As for the more common reasons for delay, we do have one piece of advice. When action slows down, and residents begin to roil with disappointment, explain, as publicly as you can, the reasons. At least then, the public is less likely to lose trust due to a lack of understanding of the exogenous factors that aren’t under the government’s control.
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