The City should listen to the consultant that the City pays. He has been around a long time and knows his business.

It is interesting what you consider ridiculous.

As a citizen, I st in the gallery and could hear nothing. I sympathized quite well with those who had dealt with that particular issue long term and made the sound system one of the first priorities on my list.

It was only around $1000 to (hopefully) get a system that would function properly and allow THE CITIZENS to understand what was going on in the council chamber.

Not really sure why you are against people understanding the flow of conversation in the council chamber while simultaneously being against government doing things secretively. There seems to be a disconnect there somewhere.

Anyway, I soon learned the acoustics of the chamber are just flat out bad, the design of the place is horrific, and nothing short of complete remodeling would really help.

I never asked for money for that venture. I'm not that stupid.

The garbage box scraper blade was routinely wearing through the bottom, and occasionally wearing through the sides of the thinner walled 13 and 15 year old trucks. It was felt that by getting a heavier duty box, paying money up front, we would save thousands on repair costs and down time later on.

It was an economic decision to buy quality in the hope that quality would last long enough to realize a return on the investment. That return occurs every year the vehicles last longer than the 10 year life expectancy of the vehicle.

And if the garbage box is still functional when the truck dies, it can be mounted on a new truck saving even more money.

Sorry about the bad grammar

We pay our leadership to make decisions such as this, and at the time I could not find no fault in his analysis of the existing major flaws.

The trucks as a whole were not in Amsterdam, by the way. The garbage boxes had to be special ordered. The chassis/cab combinations may have been there, but so what? I neither know nor care. Why would it be material to anything?

The trucks came with a standard warranty. The boxes came with a 2 year warranty. I still have the records if you would like to peruse them.

Private meetings and private phone calls do not violate either the intent or spirit of the open meetings law. Bob Freeman made that clear multiple times. No vote that expends taxpayer dollars was ever done in secret while I was councilman, and I'll gladly be polygraphed on

Since multiple opportunities were provided for citizens to comment on the purchase, and since the dialog on the subject received much press, I just cannot understand revisionist history that makes a mountain out of a molehill. I really can't.

Do you want politicians that do research, or give platitudes?

Do you want politicians that at least try to make informed decisions, even if unpopular, or do you want thumbsucking mouthbreathers who blindly follow the will of the majority, or of the loudest minority?

Do you even know what you want?

Is there a true RIGHT way to handle these things that will make you happy, or is it in your personal nature to curmudgeonly find the dark cloud in any silver lining?

You will recall that I did an exhaustive study and placed it on backdash**** for public dissemination in the only forum at the time that was able to handle it. You were there and know this fact.

You would also therefore know that the only challenge to the contract came from Councilwoman Savage, and her choice for a new truck used specifications which were inferior for the price of the vehicle. The truck she chose was also being sold in Canada, not the US.