To the editor:

I have now seen over the past few months a city government that is at the very best mediocre and actually borders on criminally stupid.

After raising the property tax, then instituting a “trash fee,” then passing a budget that had excessive waste at a time of economic hardship in the community and then passing out bonuses to all city employees from a budget excess that was a “surprise,” City Council has now subjected citizens to an increase in the water rate for the third year running.

And now they’ve followed up with an expensive and slick multi-color puff piece in the guise of a water quality report required by the federal government. The waste of money on that piece alone proves our city manager and the director of public utilities should be dismissed from their jobs for mismanaging taxpayers’ money.

Is it the opinion of City Council that there is no need to manage the managers? What incentives do they have to act in an economically sound way, with an eye toward saving money not wasting it?

The water quality report could have been done on an 8-by-11 sheet of white paper and posted on the city website, saving the city a lot of money. If 1 percent of our citizens actually read the report and understand it, I will be amazed, so sending this egotistical piece of garbage to folks implies that we have more money than we know what to do with and that when it runs out then we’ll simply grab more from the dumb citizens.

Can council really justify giving these two people a bonus? For what? I believe their job performance should be reviewed immediately and the results published on the city website for we, their real employers, to be able to measure council’s ability to manage our city.

I also would like to know why we need both a mayor and a city manager. That is another example of a redundancy that we can ill afford in this city.

If we cannot do a better job of managing our money and having capable managers, then when it is time to evaluate the job performance of City Council, its members should not be surprised by the outcome of that job review.

The citizens of Suffolk have reached the end of their rope.

William Millan

Suffolk