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Captain, thank you and a happy new year to you and yours as well. What I'm most interested in seeing going forward is that if the council continues to drag its feet on this issue is what their excuse will be? Cost was brought up as the original reason to delay it, but they can't use that forever.

As I said in my last comment that is only one side of one department and taxpayers took a beating for over $70,000. Think of how bad the problem must be if you can have $70,000 in kitchen cabinets, dishwashers etc not be recognized as inefficient purchasing. Where did people think these items were going? Nobody reviews purchases in the school department? If so, nobody thought kitchen cabinets were an odd request. There is no way this is isolated to one person or one department. I'm not saying others were aware of the amount of theft (with the exception of his wife who without a doubt knew about this 100%), but looking the other way is unacceptable and should be punished also.

As far as other departments go how do we know where all our money goes? Are there other workers ordering power drills and hammers for personal use? Is personal work being done with city equipment? This is a very serious offense and it truly does deserve the full attention of the city council, mayor and school officials. I hope that if this issue isn't resolved in the coming weeks, that taxpayers stand up and make this a BIG issue in the coming elections. Politicians should be held accountable for their actions and inactions. How can any member of the council claim to have taxpayer interests at heart and then delay the start of an audit? I would advise members of the council, the mayor and mayoral candidates to pay attention to the taxpayers. We have had it with this type of behavior being accepted. It was the action of a new superintendent that took care of this problem, and had it been left up to all of you, we (taxpayers) would be getting ripped off for over $100,000 and would still be getting ripped off today.

Stop with the phony sound bites, stop blaming it solely on the school department and somebody come forward and lead. Not one elected official or candidate is where they need to be on this issue and that's disappointing. Ms. Travis should come forward as council President and lead the fight on this audit, not continue with business as usual. If this city council will not lead then we should elect fiscally responsible folks who will.