Governor Jerry Brown, perhaps sensing he was going to have a public relations problem on his hands, fired the public relations company that was gearing up for a $10 million promotion of the soon-to-be completed San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge reconstruction.

The administration cancelled the 3-year communications contract shortly after the Sacramento Bee obtained a copy and wrote about the commemorative book, tours and video being planned by Words Pictures Ideas LLC. The contract was signed by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) in August and approved by the state Department of General Services in September.

Jim Evans, a spokesman for the state Business, Transportation & Housing Agency, which oversees Caltrans, told the Bee the contract was “excessive” and had been improperly vetted at the district level instead of headquarters. The deal, which allotted $500,000 for printing the book, included a video whose opening shots in China, South Korea and Japan—where much of the bridge was fabricated—were reportedly already in the can.  

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the same firm had already completed a 4-year, $8 million contract for bridge PR.

The Bay Bridge is a pair of spans connecting San Francisco to Oakland by way of Yerba Buena Island. A $6.4 billion reconstruction and retrofitting of the bridge’s eastern span is scheduled to be completed next year, although the public relations contract was scheduled to expire in 2016. It is the state’s highest profile, most expensive project.

Some speculated that the governor was motivated by embarrassment, because he’s been harping on fiscal irresponsibility by the University of California Regents and had just finished poor-mouthing his way to a Proposition 30 win in November. Others thought the administration was taking the opportunity to smack Caltrans for its overly independent ways.

No one argued that saving the comparatively puny expenditure for standard public relations services would have an impact on the state budget.

–Ken Broder

To Learn More:

$10 Million Bay Bridge Contract Included Book Deal, Video (by David Siders, Sacramento Bee)

Governor Kills PR for Bay Bridge Project (by Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross, San Francisco Chronicle)

Millions upon Millions for Bay Bridge PR (by Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross, San Francisco Chronicle)

Bay Bridge Won't Easily Span Information Void Resulting from Contract Flap (by Lisa Vorderbrueggen, Contra Costa Times)