So says Mayor Martin Chavez. You see the Chavez administration has entered into an open-ended contract to wrap city vehicles with a vinyl wrap that would transform them into... well we're not really sure actually.We've spotted some of Transportation Director Greg Payne's city buses cruising around town sporting the GEICO Gecko. We've assumed that the city is charging GEICO (or any other advertisers) for the wrap AND hopefully for the ad space on the city buses. Now, the mobile billboard company and perhaps the other outdoor advertisers might have a problem with the city entering their domain, but we don't as long as the advertiser is paying for the service.
In fact, it's certainly a better way to subsidize a mass transit system. After all the advertiser is paying for a service that he deems valuable and the city is presumably using the money to offset the cost of mass transit so that we taxpayers aren't left holding the bag (or at least not all of the bag). That's how the free market is supposed to work.
What we're curious about is what the city plans to put on say... garbage trucks. As an advertiser do you really want your company associated with garbage? What about all of the other city vehicles? What are they going to put on the zoning inspectors car or Animal Control paddy wagon?
At a minimum of $2,000 per vehicle (garbage trucks may cost up to $7,000), there ought to be a darn good reason to put wraps around them; something like the vinyl wraps add 50 years to the vehicles useful life. As it is, the council doesn't like the idea of the unilateral decision to spend taxpayer money on wraps that don't seem to serve a purpose and that haven't been approved by the council.
Councilor Cadigan in a prepared statement, characterized the expenditure as "the most frivolous waste of taxpayer money [he has] seen in [his] six years on the City Council." As a result, Councilor Cadigan and Council President O'Malley have asked the City Auditor to look into the contract and see whether Mayor Marty has the authority to issue a contract that will potentially be worth MILLIONS of dollars without council approval. You see contracts of over $50,000 are typically subject to a competitive bid process and council approval.
There's no doubt that this is yet another shot in the escalating war between the 11th floor and the council. In our opinion, discord between the two is actually good for the public. If those two get along, the rate at which the city gathers power to itself and freedom from the rest of us is truly terrifying. Plus we'd hate see all of the city vehicles looking like this!
