The vast majority of government waste stories involve big projects, but the City of Tampa has shown it can waste money with the best of them. 

They say the definition of a sailboat is a hole in the water that you throw money into. In the case of the City of Tampa, the same can be said for the Cuscaden Pool. The pool is a 75 year old structure that sites above ground. It has additional rooms below that are…or were…used for a variety of purposes.

As you might expect, the 75 year old structure started to spring some leaks. The City of Tampa did the logical thing…they tried to repair them. The only problem was the City apparently didn’t do a full analysis. Instead, they went ahead and spent $2.6 million dollars to repair the structure. 

It was not money well spent. 

You can probably guess what happened. Yes, the structure kept right on leaking. So, what did the City do? Did they call the contractor back to the site? Did they call the engineers back to the site and demand it be fixed? While you can be sure there was some dialogue, the final decision was to simply close the structure down and lock it up. Yes, the City spent $2.6 million on the project and then closed it! 

I don’t even know where to start with this one. Spending $2.6 million on a 75 year old above ground pool that leaks seems a bit of a reach to start with. That being said, let’s assume it made sense to try to repair it. Wouldn’t you then hold some feet to the fire if the repair failed? There is a legal concept called construction defect the City might want to take a look at. If you hire a company to identify the problem and then fix it, there should be hell to pay when it doesn’t work. 

So, has the City abandoned the project completely? No. That would be to smart. The City is now trying to come up with $15,000 to perform a new study to find the leaks and repair them! This group of bungling government officials would make the Keystone Cops very proud!