Before I begin, I just want to make clear how important transparency is, especially when it comes to the taxpayers of this great city.
As a conservative myself, I feel that a municipality that is transparent with its residents is a municipality that can truly spend taxpayer dollars in effective and efficient ways.
Competitive bidding in most municipalities is a very transparent process. For those of you who do not know what competitive bidding is, it is the process in which a municipality (such as Ansonia) hires a company to do a service for the city or to provide supplies to the city. Generally, the party who provides the lowest bid with the best contract terms is awarded the bid. This is a public process, allowing a municipality to make the best possible deal for the money they are spending.
If you look at any other city website, whether it be Derby, Seymour, Oxford, or Shelton, you will see that the bids are prominently displayed and advertised on the homepage of their website. This makes it easy for eager companies to work with these municipalities to offer their services, and in turn get the municipality the best deal.
Now, if you go to Ansonia’s website, you will not find the bids on the homepage. In fact, you can’t really find the bids anywhere on the website without some very hefty digging. This is worrisome for a number of reasons, the biggest being that taxpayer’s dollars are being wasted. If you or I have to dig to find the bids for Ansonia, what makes you think a company wanting to do work with Ansonia is going to waste their time looking for them? Further, how do we even know if these bids are being properly advertised to begin with?
Ansonia could save hundreds of thousands of dollars annually if they simply advertised the bids in a better manner. Per the city charter, bids “ should be made in compliance with public notice, and duly advertised by publication.” The most efficient way of advertising these bids would be a link to them right on the homepage of the Ansonia website, just as every city surrounding us does.
Transparency such as this would be an amazing asset to Ansonia, and I am sure that less money would be neglectfully spent if the city opened up to more ideas like this. As I mentioned previously, being a conservative myself, Ansonia can greatly benefit if transparency was at the forefront of this administration.
Even when you look at the City of Ansonia website under the previous administration, the bids were just a click away from the homepage.
I strive for efficiency and effectiveness, and I want the same for my hometown. Together, we can make Ansonia a better place to live, and make City Hall more financially efficient than ever before.
The writer, a 2015 graduate of Ansonia High School, is currently serving in the US Marine Corps. His opinions and viewpoints are strictly his own and not the viewpoints of the Department of Defense.
