All you really need to know.

After an hour or so of nonsensical council bickering about paving, it became clear that the most vocal of the council members don't really know how large infrastructure jobs are bid, completed, and paid for or if we have money or not to pay for them.

That's not terribly important to any palpable decision making in this case, though, because that's not what the bickering is really about. When one of the council members finally asked how the City could actually get the paving money it needs in a timely manner so another year isn't lost to inaction, the Bookseller and I and perhaps a few others said "float a bond" in unison.

The response from the President's chair came quickly. "We're not going to do that," he said, looking straight at us. "Especially if part of it goes to a certain street."

No two-ways about it, it's about them people and their highfalutin ideas. They want safe, neighborhood friendly streets and Dan Coffey's going to try to stop it, even if it means bleeding every single account in the city down to zero and taking any other improvement projects off the table for the next few years to do it.

A hat tip to John Gonder and maybe Pat McLaughlin for temporarily injecting some semblance of reason into the discussion. Until more members take that cue, attempting to work with the council will remain a decision that a rational person would not make.
Sitting through a complete meeting as an observer is challenging enough.

Next time I might just go to the hotel down the street and flush the toilet over and over again. The circling and eventual destination are the same and I may as well get some entertainment value out of my subsidy money.