Those who argue the public is too ignorant of technical issues to be allowed input into the process aren't living in the same city as me. San Diego has a wealth of technical talent, but none of it seems to be employed by the city. The SDDPC employees I've met were dullards compared to the engineers I've worked with at local private companies. Opening up the process to the public could have resulted in experienced IT professionals warning in advance about these kinds of problems. Instead, it's all swept under the rug until it's too late.

Posted by Fred Williams | reply to this comment
December 12, 2008 8:33 am

Your question, Scott. ". . .it's not DPC staff that's deciding it needs this new group. City managers are calling the shots on this. The city is telling DPC what to do. So if city staff is deciding something and a board apparently must approve that decision, how in the world is it not the City Council? " DPC is a Council created corporation- like SEDC, CCDC, at least structurally. The difference is that the Council delegated all its authority to the City Manager [now Mayor] to oversee the corp, and specified by ordinance who could be on the Board after an earlier board found itself in serious trouble. The DPC Board should be subject to the Brown Act and its meeting open to the public for any input.

Posted by historian | reply to this comment
December 12, 2008 10:10 am

Give it a rest with the knee-jerk to "public input"! What on earth is the public going to offer to this process, Ms. Frye? Are they going to inform the city which contractor is best? Are they going to have anything meaningful or useful to say that city staff close to the matter isn't? The city has a screwed-up technology contract. All technology contracts are screwed up. ALL OF THEM. I worked in tech for a long, long time. All contracts go awry. The only thing that's unusual about this situation is that, because the city can't afford to let the ship sink, they're abandoning a hopeless situation earlier than most. There's usually a whole lot more fruitless bailing before companies make the inevitable break. Good for the city. SD taxpayers don't know how good they have it concerning this decision.

Posted by Give it a rest! | reply to this comment
December 9, 2008 9:57 pm

Point being, SD taxpayers should know how good or bad they have it regarding financial decisions of this magnitude. There was a big rush to finalize ERP decisions in April and May so the Mayor could say there was progress on ONESD during his campaign. The affected departments - who dropped everything to try and make the consultants decisions work - suddenly were let off the hook in June -right after the mayor won back his seat in the primary. Urgency gone...on to the next PR crisis.

Posted by Point being... | reply to this comment
December 10, 2008 6:56 am

Councilmembers are the citizens' representatives. The council should be informed and decide every legislative move. That includes the DPC. We call our council person for information and they had better know the answer. They need to take back their power and legislate. The mayor is supposed to execute what the council legislates. Something is very wrong. Why does the mayor feel he has the authority to release monies without informing the council and the public. He ran his campaign on transparency and we have seen little or none of that. Has anyone uttered the word, "recall?"

Posted by Barbara C. Anderson | reply to this comment
December 15, 2008 4:00 pm

It would be worthwhile for the Voice to report on how similar major software upgrades fared at other municipalities. I think you will find the San Diego experience on a par or even better and the changing of contractor not usual. It would also be good reporting to actually find out what the cost over-runs are for the city project if any. Also, is the failure to meet time deadlines out of the ordinary particularly given that the only role of the mayor's office political wing has been to sabotage the project by firing Rick Reynolds, its project leader? It is strange that the expertise of DPC has not been used more by the city in the IT upgrade. But involving the city council would only lead to meddling by a group, Sherri Lightner excepted, unlike the DCP board,lacking any discernible expertise in IT.

Posted by ian Trowbridge | reply to this comment
December 10, 2008 7:20 am

Ian, you're right that we're not unique. Complex implementations do fail. That's why professionals use best practices..not guesswork. Hasn't SDDPC ever heard of CMMI or PMBOK? (Link to free version: link Best practices were NOT followed by the City or these problems would have been avoided. Government software isn't THAT hard: (http://www.amazon.com/Developing-Software-Government-Standards-Roetzheim/dp/013829755X). Metrics-based cost and schedule estimating isn't new either. Jones and Roetzheim have written extensively on the subject: (http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2005/04/0504Jones.html and link and link Plus, there are great estimating tools like CostXpert (http://www.costxpert.com/en/index.html). So I just cannot excuse SDDPC for this situation.

Posted by Fred Williams | reply to this comment
December 12, 2008 2:34 pm

Have you not heard of delegating the details, especially when they are technical in nature. Frye's comment about the public being shut out of this process is out of order. The public can't design the details of the system and then administer the system's installation and integration. That's about as smart as having the US Congress run the auto industry. In fact if you want the public to be that involved, then you are asking for the project to fail. And, finally, when are you and the rest of the critics going to give the staff our confidence that they can do their jobs?

Posted by Mike Leach | reply to this comment
December 10, 2008 2:53 pm

The City/DPC's first mistake was buying any system or service based on SAP. That's a rookie mistake. Even the biggest companies eventually cry uncle and bail out of that mess. Besides being gawd awfully expensive, what is usually delivered is a bare-bones package that then needs to be "tailored" by SAP experts. It's the tailoring that no one ever gets quite right and which has led, in this instance, to the no-bid contract for SAP consultants to finish the job. The other large chunk of the cost is in staff time. Those who would use the system have to work closely with the contractor analysts and developers to explain how the current systems work and what the City wants to do with the new system, what the work flow is, etc. What the City is going through with this contract is nothing new.

Posted by goodhabits | reply to this comment
December 10, 2008 4:56 pm

I think the days of transparency is over. I am assuming that the people of San Diego made their choice knowing that Mayer Sanders is in the pocket of the Republicans. Like Bush, he is not responsible, he is their lackey, therefore, he is beholden to the big boys. He has traded his soul and the people of San Diego to a bastion of crooked white men. It was not too long ago that DPC was caught with its hand in the till. People were fired and others were given a free ride to leave their positions never having to pay for what they did. I am sick and tired of men that write in with their prejudice toward Donna Frye. Many do not know because they never bothered to ask, but, Donna Frye won in the 2004 election.

Posted by Francene Blanchard | reply to this comment
December 11, 2008 2:55 am

Uh, Ms. Blanchard -- what "days of transparency" are you talking about? Were those the days of transparency when Donna Frye and the rest of the Council voted to underfund the pension in exchange for increased benefits? There have never been "days of transparency" in San Diego. And just about every time Frye or any of them scream for more public input, it's to stall or avoid a tough decision they were elected to make.

Posted by Voice of the Obvious | reply to this comment
December 11, 2008 3:27 pm

You have to admit, folks, the notion of "public involvement" in the labyrinthine mess that frequently accompanies "much-needed" technology makeover/boondoggles by deep-pocket public agencies is not anything you'd really want. What's really needed are capable experts hired to do the work who regularly and fully report publicly to the contracting official body so that there is genuine accountability for both progress and setbacks. Such experts need to have a facility for communicating honestly in the English language and a thick skin for answering criticism from low-tech Council representatives as inevitable glitches, over-runs and bugs are worked out. The truth is that such huge technology system overhauls are always much more expensive than their original proposals and probably would never be undertaken if cost alone were the determining factor. Council's job is to make sure a needed expensive makeover does not become scandalous free-fall into boondoggle.

Posted by Frances O'Neill Zimmerman | reply to this comment
December 15, 2008 10:07 am

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