Exactly. "The last thing they want is to be seen as....", it's got very little to do with the terms of the contract of whether it's good contract for the city or the citizens. It might be in this case, but it doesn't even matter.
My thoughts on this come from my experience with an analagous case on a smaller level -- I have worked with a university that signed a contract with a vendor (not Google in this case) for digitization of some library content, because "the last thing they want[ed] is to be seen as falling behind" other universities that signed such contracts with that or other vendors (including Google). That any vendor was even interested was seen as an honor. In fact, the contract was terrible for the university, they got little benefit from it and had to expend university resources basically for the vendor's benefit. But for a year or two, it seemed exciting and made them appear not to be "falling behind".
Comments
Exactly. "The last thing they want is to be seen as....", it's got very little to do with the terms of the contract of whether it's good contract for the city or the citizens. It might be in this case, but it doesn't even matter.
My thoughts on this come from my experience with an analagous case on a smaller level -- I have worked with a university that signed a contract with a vendor (not Google in this case) for digitization of some library content, because "the last thing they want[ed] is to be seen as falling behind" other universities that signed such contracts with that or other vendors (including Google). That any vendor was even interested was seen as an honor. In fact, the contract was terrible for the university, they got little benefit from it and had to expend university resources basically for the vendor's benefit. But for a year or two, it seemed exciting and made them appear not to be "falling behind".