The recent discussion over the eLearning
Lab’s proposal to partner with the library brought to light a situation that,
regardless of the merits of that particular issue, ought to be of concern to
all of us.
Over the past decade or so, so-called “public-private
partnerships” (PPPs) have been of increasing importance all over the world in
extending the ability of governments to provide services in difficult
economics. According to the U. S. State Department, “Such partnerships have
leveraged the creativity, innovation, and core business resources of private
partners for greater impact on global issues. To date, the Department has
worked with over 1,100 partners and mobilized more than $650 million in public and
private resources to support key foreign policy objectives including climate
change mitigation, women’s empowerment, economic growth, and human rights.” The
State Department’s participation in PPPs represents only a small portion of
PPPs worldwide.
In most
countries these PPP arrangements have been aimed at overcoming broad public
sector constraints in relation to either a lack of public capital; and/or a
lack of public sector capacity, resources and specialized expertise to develop,
manage, and operate infrastructure assets. Public Private Partnerships are now
commonly used to accelerate economic growth, development and infrastructure
delivery and to achieve quality service delivery and good governance.
The need for
PPPs in many countries has been accelerated by the public sector‘s recognition
of the vital role of modern infrastructure in economic growth, and PPPs are now
accepted as an important avenue for funding major public sector infrastructure
projects. PPPs are joint ventures in which business and government co-operate,
each applying its strengths to develop a project more quickly and more
efficiently than government could accomplish on its own. The private sector may
be responsible for the designing, financing, constructing, owning and/or
operating the entire project. The private sector may want to be assured that
the public-private partnership structure is designed to provide competitive
rates of return commensurate with a financial rate of return that they could earn
on alternative projects of comparable risk.
In the case
of the eLearning Café/Washoe County Libraries discussion, the Library Board’s
counsel delivered an opinion that the PPP could not happen because of a
peculiarity of Nevada Law. Under the Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS) anything of
this sort that is not explicitly enabled or permitted in the Statutes is
considered to be prohibited. Not surprisingly, PPPs are not included in the
NRS, which was originally formulated in 1861.
The
provision that effectively prohibits anything not explicitly permitted is
particularly problematic in a state where the Legislature only sits every two
years and then only for a few months.
PPPs are
proving to be an especially effective vehicle in the environmental area as
recognition increases that a focus on the environment in isolation from the
larger picture is in most cases ineffective. Current thinking in the mainstream
of the environmental movement is that there is a “triple bottom line” that
requires attention to environmental, economic, and social factors, and this
lends increasing importance to looking beyond government for solutions. The
TRPA Regional Plan Update depends on such PPPs that are represented in part by developments
such as Homewood, Boulder Bay, and Edgewood on a large scale, and also
partnerships such as that between TRPA and the Tahoe Resource Conservation
District for boat inspections in service of keeping aquatic invasive species
under control.
The 2013 Regular Session of the Nevada
Legislature begins on Monday, February 4, and while it is too late to hope for
new legislation to enable PPPs, it is possible to attach such a measure to
existing legislation being introduced. I’ve written to Senator Ben Kieckhefer and Assemblyman Randy Kirner asking them to
look into this situation, and thus far have received no response. If enough
people raise this issue with them, it’s possible we can get something done in
this legislative session.
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