While our national discourse is about nastiness and the federal debt, our city is seemingly going the other way debt-wise. I refer, of course, to the recent library bond issue, the rec center and other expenditures.

Does anyone really believe the future of reading is in hard-cover books? We have unlimited information on the Internet, and have computers, Apples, iPads. telephones, cameras, Blackberries, electronic readers, audio books and, for all I know, blueberries, peaches and bananas available at our fingertips to replace the library. Why are we spending millions of dollars on a new building to add more meeting rooms and computers?  Use existing office space, or, instead of renting Borders, buy it, and remodel it for this and other office space the City says it needs.

This week we learned of the decision to change garbage pickup, with the main reason seemingly to reduce workers’ compensation costs. We are told that the trucks have the hydraulics necessary. While they do have hydraulics, they are not the ones specifically required to side-load/dump containers as the current recycling collector uses. What will the retrofit or new units cost? If we are going to do this, shouldn’t we also consider doing city-run recycling now? The procedure is the same, and, if our present collector is making a profit, which I must assume he is, wouldn’t the city do so also?

And how about our 90 miles of deteriorating roads?