Pueblog USa

Monday, March 14, 2005

Mother Would Not Approve

My mother, who grew up during the Depression, would not approve of what the City is trying to sell.

After a few days absence, I was browsing the collected Chieftains, when I ran across this public notice:

The City of Pueblo will be accepting sealed bids for used office furniture and obsolete inventory determined to be surplus by the City of Pueblo…
Miscellaneous Used Office Furniture - Desks, Chairs, Filing Cabinets, Etc.
Miscellaneous Office Supplies - New - Copy Paper, Labels, File Folders, Etc.
Miscellaneous Maintenance Items - New - Sprinkler Parts, Light Bulbs, Water Hose, Miscellaneous Tools, Etc.

Okay, the used office furniture is reasonable. Desks produced before computers, or before desktop computers, usually don’t work well in today’s modern offices. Chairs just get too scrungy for words. And sometimes you end up in an office where vertical files don’t work and you need laterals.

But, “new” copy paper? “New” file folders? Mother would not approve. She would say it’s a matter of use it up, make it do, wear it out. She, and I, just don’t understand. Has the City stopped using copy machines? Is it now running to Kinko’s for all it’s copying needs? Has it stopped filing papers? Is it now putting all memos, records, the applications we fill out, etc., on computer disc and then tossing the paper? (Is the paper being recycled?) Why did the City buy new paper and folders, only to turn around and sell them at garage sale prices?

And what about the “maintenance items?” Did the systems they were purchased for suddenly disappear in a flood? Why does the City no longer have a use for light bulbs and water hose? Are they only using sunlight in offices and carrying water in buckets as cost-cutting measures?

Is this need to sell excess stuff the result of many years slow accumulation, or bad planning on some manager’s part?

This taxpayer wants to know.