Stop The Conveyor Belt: LAX Security Boondoggle Alert
By Walter Moore, Candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles, MooreIsBetter.com.Here comes another LAX boondoggle. You better stow your wallets in the "locked" position.
According to the L.A. Times, the agency that runs the City's airports wants to spend $873 million to install "truck-sized explosives detection machines in systems that ferry bags from ticket counters to waiting airplanes." This is way up from the original cost estimate, in 2003, of $342 million. If they order the machines now, they expect to have them up and running three years from now, in 2010. "At LAX, the complex project requires a builder to rip out three miles of 1960s-era bag belts, while making sure that 150,000 bags are delivered to the proper flights each day. "
May I suggest something simpler, that can be implemented, starting, say, Thursday, as opposed to 2010, and at a fraction of the cost?
Hire people -- actual human beings -- to search every single bag.
If you do the math, you see it's a bargain compared to the almost billion-dollar machine. For less than 75 cents per bag, we could hire 714 inspectors at $55,000 per year, to work in seven-hour shifts, spending two minutes to inspect each bag. This approach would mean new jobs, it would take effect years sooner, and it would cost much less. Indeed, for what the machines would cost, you could pay for these inspectors for 22 years.
So let's not sign up for that expensive machine. Let's put people to work and get the luggage screened by human beings, right now, without giving terrorists three more "free" years to strike here in L.A.
Posted by Walter Moore @ 4/15/2007 10:59:00 PM
10 Comments:
Not bad, but only $55K a year? They won't be able to afford to live anywhere near LAX, and traffic around there is bad enough already. Speaking of housing, what happened to your post from earlier, the one that compared rent control to rape?
Getting back on topic, I wouldn't want people hand checking all my bags. A little Big Brotherish, plus they probably wouldn't re-fold my duds.
Actually, there's an easy solution for that, too. LAWA used our money to buy up an entire neighborhood nearby to build a pointless check in facility off-site. Let's instead use all that housing for something wildly imaginative: housing. You could make housing nearby part of the compensation package, AND cut down on traffic.
As for the salary, what?! You're paying people to rifle luggage, not perform brain surgery. Fifty-five thousand is more than starting teachers make.
But let's say you want to pay $75,000 per year. The price per bag is still under a dollar -- 98 cents -- and the $873 for the machine would cover 16 years' worth of pay.
As for big brother, I'm not sure, but I suspect we could arrange it so you're present when they examine your luggage. Also, if you don't like people looking in your luggage, you better not travel internationally. Customs officials look whenever they feel like it.
As for rent control, I never made any such comparison, so there is no such article.
55K per year actually is a problem. Lower wages encourage low skilled applicants. While it isn't brain surgery it does require a certain amount of skill i.e. independent thought. What is that strange looking object? A vibrator or a pipe bomb? OOh I like that shiny thing there. In to the pocket it goes. I've had things stolen out of my bags. The things were in there when I packed the bag adn gone when I got home. So it had to have been a TSA person. It's been all over the news before: luggage screeners miss alot of things such as weapons and contraband. I for one would rather pay theses guys (as well as teachers) a solid wage so they can have some incentive to do a halfway decent job. But I would also have stricter hiring practices.
I was a TSA candidate for employment. I was denied when the person I called told me that I was too smart. "We turn down all kinds of smart people"
I would work for $55K. Obviously they dont turn down the dishonest ones.
Another typical Walter wank-off idea. Go take a tour of airports with modern terminals in the U.S. and overseas and see how many of them are doing it Walter's way. There's one up in San Francisco (much ballyhooed recently in the paper), so that's a good place to start. And maybe Walter should be thinking about how much passengers love standing in line for two hours while humanoids pick through the baggage. Has Walter been anywhere except his computer keyboard recently?
Those brainiacs in the White House mandated federalized security officers at airports after 9-11 and have been steadily cutting the budget for them the last couple of years. Some commitment to security. Another underfunded mandate.
7:37: The starting salary for LAPD officers is less than $55,000 per year.
11:03: That's very troubling! We need smart people involved in security.
7:00: I travelled internationally as recently as January 2007. Can you name even one airport that uses the machine that will take till 2010 to install here? When did you last travel? Why are you unable to advance a position without including a groundless insult? As an experienced advocate, let me tell you: insults, especially without any facts or logic to suppor your position, will only undermine your own credibility.
I asked what happened to Walter's post from Sunday afternoon that disappeared. Walter said:
As for rent control, I never made any such comparison, so there is no such article.
Written like a true lawyer.
There was "such article" whether Walter wants to admit it or not. He deleted it and should tell us why.
The title of the post was "Rape Me Again," "Keep Raping Me," or something like that, and I know that title was written by Walter because he posted it.
Walter's post contained a comment from an earlier blog post that compared rent control to rape (of the property owner). The words were not Walter's, but the title of the post and the fact that he thought the comment should be posted on the main page imply that he endorses the idea that rent control should be compared to rape.
Perhaps the average reasonable person thinks it is too extreme to compare rent control to rape, and that's why Walter took his post down. We won't know until he explains it to us.
Walter, did you delete your post, and if so, why?
We only pay LAPD officers $55K to start? No wonder we can't recruit any new officers! They can't afford to live here.
Walter's solution is to have them "drive until they qualify" because they obviously haven't "worked and saved" enough. I think LAPD officers do good work and shouldn't have to live in Palmdale (a city Walter derides) and spend 3 hours a day commuting in order to have the priviledge of protecting the streets of our neighborhoods.
8:05: See other posts on the website. The article to which you are referring was written by Mayor Sam. I read it for the first time today.
8:07: You have misstated my position. Plank 4 of my platform states sets forth exactly how I would recruit more police. I asked police officers themselves what is preventing the City from getting more recruits. They told me the pay is fine, but other departments offer better benefits. The solution, therefore, is quite simple: offer competitive pay AND benefits. Can we afford it? Absolutely. The City took in $717 million more last year than the year before.
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