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Well Done, City Council
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Dear Editor: Kudos to the City Council for two things. First, for being forward thinking enough to absorb credit card fees on payments made on utility accounts by customers with credit cards. The only way local governments will survive in this economy is to think like a business person. If you can get your money now without risk of a returned check and if you have to discount some to accomplish that, any normal private business would do it, and it happens every day. Thankfully, now we have two businessmen on the council who realize this. The city and county need to start thinking out of the box and get away from the ‘well we’ve always done0 it that way’ mentality. What if when you got to the cashier at your favorite store, he charged you more for using a credit card? Businesses are smart enough to look at the big picture and not do that. I applaud the city of Covington for making that change.

The second thing. Although the change in local regulations to match state regulations regarding employee and officials selling items to the city seemed at least to one letter writer a backwards move, I say this. We need business-minded people on the council; business-minded people run businesses. Sure there could always be a scenario where a group of employees conspired to rig a bid or do something unethical so that an employee or elected official with the city benefited from a sale, but what about when an official or employee actually has a genuine concern and is willing to sell something to the city at cost or at a tremendous discount because he doesn’t want the city to pay too much? I know first hand of some scenarios where the city could have saved money had they been allowed to do business with employees.

There are two sides to every story, and the last time I checked Boss Hog is not on the council or city payroll. Let’s be smart enough to realize that there are positive possibilities to this change. We should not do things that penalize a business person for serving on the council. In the long run, things like that could cost us far more than the fear of an abuse of a purchasing policy.