Everybody has heard about Van Halen and the dreaded Brown M&Ms.
The band’s contract rider required a bowl of M&Ms backstage with all the brown ones removed. People thought it was rock-star nonsense. It wasn’t.
It was a test.
Their stage setup was massive, technical, and, potentially dangerous. If the promoter overlooked the simple M&M clause, the bands management went on high alert as to the possibility larger safety requirements were disregarded.
The Brown M&Ms were not about candy. They were about competence.
So what are Public Works’ Brown M&Ms?
We seem to have a full bowl.
One Brown M&M is a department head who recently said she did not remember when she was hired. I remember job timelines from decades ago, so when the head of a major department cannot remember when her tenure began, that is not a small detail. That is an accountability problem.
Another Brown M&M is calling projects “finished” when problems appear during and almost immediately afterward. The Tennis Center was nearly “finished,” and the courts already had financial and quality issues. A previous remodel of the clubhouse was “finished”, although the contractor left early and sued the City.
That is not a project closeout. That is a sequel.
Then there is the consultant relay race. Public Works hires a consultant, the consultant hires another consultant, someone studies the problem, someone prepares a PowerPoint, and somehow the building still leaks.
In the real world, outside the government bubble, aging buildings are handled with shocking simplicity: call qualified roofers, get inspections, get bids, all for free, choose the best and fix the roofs before it rains.
Government rules matter. Procurement rules matter. But rules should not turn common sense into a taxpayer-funded obstacle course.
That is why Public Works needs a real audit.
Not a polite “turn your head and cough” checkbox audit, and not an interdepartmental okey-doke dressed up for CSMFO. Hey, just because my business checking account balances that tells you nothing about how I’ve managed my companies. It reveals nothing about the money I’ve paid for labor, Manufacturing, Advertising and whether any of those were effective or properly budgeted for.
I’m talking a real performance audit… a colonoscopy. One that asks: Where did the money go? Were projects completed on time and on budget? Were change orders justified? Were consultants necessary? Were contractors properly managed? Were problems caught early? Were promises kept?
This is not about attacking staff. It is about protecting taxpayers.
Public Works controls major public projects and a majority of public money. Serious public money requires serious accountability.
Right now, the Brown M&Ms are piling up. For goodness sake the first large project we taxpayers funded has ballooned from $3.5M to $8.6M … that’s a LOT of Brown M&Ms.
Only people uncomfortable with their actions in the past and worried about accountability for their decisions dismiss any attempt to look back to see how we got where we are now, before pursuing the future.
The Council should order an independent performance audit of Public Works — including project delivery, budgeting, consultant use, contractor oversight, change orders, timelines, maintenance planning, and whether completed projects were actually completed as promised.
Because when the bowl is full of Brown M&Ms, the answer is not to admire the candy, backslap and print another certificate of achievement.
The answer is to inspect the stage before something collapses.
James Jensen
Seal Beach
