Szabo No Longer Under Contract
— by Jeffrey Wisniewski — 10 November 2009 — Comments Off
It wasn’t just a Saturday evening Halloween that came and went without incident (at least publicized incident), it was also the end of George Szabo’s reign as town planner for the Waterfront. Last November, the City Council mindlessly signed a one-year contract extension with the oft-maligned designer of the ill-fated Szabo plan. A follow-on contract has not yet appeared in a City Council meeting agenda.
The extended contract was for $95k, and according to City officials and outside consultants cognizant of resident dissidence for the southern California suburban planner, George Szabo had virtually no input in the final process for the ultimate design of the train station. Money well spent.
The contract stated that Szabo was to “continue assisting the Assistant City Manager in the final determination of the Intermodal Transit Center site planning and design, coordination with other consultants and designers with regard to the train overpass, ferry access, etc.,” but we are much better off that that was not the case.
Interestingly, the contract also explicitly asked for the City to “remove all references to ‘architect, town architect, City architect,’” because the required licenses were non-existent. We never had a Town Architect for the Waterfront during the train station design process, although we were apparently paying for one. Another lesson learned, hopefully.
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