On FrontBurner, Tim Rogers comments with obvious satisfaction on word today that the city has come up with a bid for the first Calatrava bridge that will fall close to the available budget. Here's what I notice and I think others should too: This new bid amount for the bridge is apparently going to be half what the previous low bid was. For real reporters, that would raise the question of: How? What was done between the last round of bids and this one to make the bridge cost half as much?
The city is saying that changes have been made to the basic design of the bridge, but nobody has asked or answered the question of what impact those changes will have on the final product, from either an engineering or aesthetic perspective.
Do we even hear this question from Tim? No. We don't hear any questions, in fact. Instead we hear the kind of cheerleading we might expect to hear at a St. Mark's-Jesuit Cistercian football game. And maybe that's the good thing about Tim and D. We always know what team they're on. --Jim Schutze
