Asheville Citizen-Times, February 15, 2004
By Casey Hurley
Emerging public - private partnerships have been described in recent AC-T commentaries and news stories. Although some people applaud new forms of cooperation, these arrangements create new concerns and tensions.
At the international level, Richard Reeves (AC-T, Oct. 21, A7) described private military companies (PMCs) hired to do the public’s business in Iraq. He is concerned that PMCs are not accountable to the public.
At the national level, David Broder wrote about public financing of political campaigns. He concluded that, “In a nation as open as this one, with the constitutional guarantee of free expression we enjoy, it is virtually impossible to shut down the flow of money from the private sector to the political world.” His points were that (1) public financing has not worked well enough, and (2) traditional relationships between campaign donors and politicians have worked too well.
Local columnists and regional news stories have also described public – private partnerships.
Kim McGuire (AC-T, Nov. 11, A11) wrote about the partnerships that enabled Asheville’s downtown to recover from years of exodus and decay: “The process that produced today’s downtown was the work of many, many people.” She described how bi-partisan political leadership, citizen groups, and private investors cooperated to build downtown Asheville.
Steve Towe (AC-T, Oct. 26, A9) wants renewed cooperation as we address our region’s problems. He said we should “come together as communities and use the approved Community Based Planning Model” to maintain the beauty of our region.
Finally, a local news story (AC-T, Nov. 28, B1) discussed developments in the Montford neighborhood, describing the police-public partnership as one “which has seen homes remodeled and become home to several bed and breakfast businesses.” The article pointed out that, in the absence of an effective community resource officer, though, vandalism has returned and the partnership is in danger.
As public and private are brought together in new ways, new tensions are arising. Whether these partnerships are successful, or not, will depend partly on the attitudes of both sectors toward their “partner.”
A Guest Commentary by Tim Pluta (AC-T, Oct. 13, A7) caused me to think about my own attitude toward public and private. His column about the need for citizens to “weed the government garden,” was on my mind as I worked in the yard.
Vines from the woods next to my yard were creeping into my mulched area, where I had planted shrubs and ground cover. So I pulled out the vines, which I first thought of as “government weeds.” I was weeding the “government garden,” so my purchased plants could thrive.
But then I wondered if maybe it was the other way around -- the vines from the woods were like the private sector and my purchased plants were the “government garden.”
In this analogy the creeping vines lived according to the rule of the woods – any species that could not compete was crowded out. It was every plant for itself. I could almost hear the hearty vines laughing at me as I tried to keep them away from my plantings.
At one time our neighborhood was woods and farmland. Recent property owners have tempered the “rule of the woods” by planting and tending weaker, more precious species. Maybe landscaped areas were like the public sector because they needed protection from woodland competition.
So, which was it? Was I “weeding the government garden” as I pulled at the vines, or were the vines like the private sector – spreading wherever they could find sunshine and nutrients?
When I presented this question to Western Carolina University political science professor Gibbs Knotts, his response reflected the point of this column -- “It depends on who you ask.”
According to him, “We have a free capitalistic society and it is tough to separate the public and private sectors. The best we can do is come up with a code of ethics and have a workable strategy for enforcing it.”
He said sometimes public and private work well, together. “We have successfully blended public and private in Community Development Corporations. Republicans love them because they are private, and democrats love them because they give local people voice.”
“Private investors develop housing as they work with boards made up of local people. The boards decide on the projects, the types of housing, the job training, and the commercial development. Our research has found that they’re pretty good at building houses, but it is tougher to build community.”
Why is it so difficult to build community and blend private and public? One reason is that, like the woodland vines and the plantings in my yard, private and public organizations thrive in different conditions.
Too often entrepreneurs are unfamiliar with the bureaucratic environment of public institutions, and public employees don’t understand the world of competition.
For example, the private sector fails to understand that public bureaucracies exist outside the forces of competition so they can provide the stability not possible in a competitive environment. Public institutions are designed for stability, not for competition. A stable bureaucracy maintains the checks and balances that prevent the misuse of tax dollars, and the self-preserving quality of bureaucracy engenders citizen confidence.
And public employees sometimes fail to understand that being sheltered from competition requires that they be more committed, not less committed, to serving the interests of private citizens and businesses.
A second reason it is difficult to build community across
public and private organizations is that we fail to recognize that both types
of organizations have the same purpose– to improve the quality of life. Too
many people believe the private sector’s purpose is to make money and the
public sector’s purpose is to preserve itself.
Mistaking profit and self-preservation for purposes has fed the cynicism some feel toward “partners” in the other sector. Business people see the public sector as inefficient because it does not have to compete to make a profit. And public employees believe the private sector lacks concern for others because it is focused on profit. Each side can point to extreme examples to support its view (e.g. Defense Department purchases, Enron, Tyco).
But extremes of public inefficiency and private greed do not damage the prospects for partnership as much as failure to recognize shared purpose. Failure to see shared purpose causes us to be suspicious and to lose faith in our institutions.
Jim Buchanan’s column (AC-T, Nov. 11, A11) warned of the consequences of lost faith. He asked, “When you lose faith in the military, the government, the nation, the school, the church, the neighbor, the civic group… well, what do you have left?”
He answered that, when you have no faith, “you are out on a limb that nobody should be on, because faith runs the world.”
Having faith is akin to respecting, trusting and appreciating the structures and processes used in both public and private institutions.
Business people should recognize the good will that is required of those who work in complex, public bureaucracies. And public employees should appreciate that business people operate without a safety net and without a bureaucracy to obscure responsibility.
Both public and private organizations improve the quality of life, but healthy new partnerships will develop only if those who work in each sector appreciate the different conditions under which their partners accomplish this purpose.
When I was pulling the vines creeping from the woods, was I weeding the “government garden,” or was I protecting my plantings from the competition of the woods? It depends on how we look at it. I hope we can see it both ways.