The lease made Cal Water responsible for all needed capital improvements. Likewise, the California city of Manhattan Beach contracted out its solid-waste disposal in a very creative manner, saving serious money. In early 1993, the city council rebid its refuse collection services, which were already under private contract. After all proposals were in, the city actually revealed the proposals publicly, for all bidding firms to review. Firms were allowed to revise their proposals based on what other firms had offered, thus allowing for improvement in the city's ultimate deal.
Public safety is an area generally considered best left up to the public sector.
The volunteers, a large number of them senior citizens, have enabled San Diego to add several new policing services and are an important component of the city's community policing program. Given this, the next mayor will have to tackle entrenched interests whose appetites for perks have been whetted by the summer's political processes. As the authors have examined hundreds of programs at every level of government across the country and around the world, we have identified six key political and organizational strategies for successfully implementing competitive strategies. Each of these is examined in depth in the final chapter of this book. But the salient points to remember for now are, first and foremost, that a strong political leader is vital to success.