There must be something in the water around here that causes local politicians to go crazy over selecting furniture for public offices.

Recently the Oxford City Council put out a bid for furniture for the town's new city hall.

They received bids back from four furniture suppliers, which included one local furniture supplier - Ramsey Furniture.

Three of the bids came back in the $40,000 - $50,000 range. The local Ramsey bid came in at $29,775.

You would think that this would be a no-brainer and that the wise use of tax money would be to pick the low bid provided by Ramsey.

Usually, that is how the bidding process works.

Instead the highest bid from a company based in Suwannee was accepted.

We have attempted to get council to tell us why they did this; their answer was that they could have spent more as they had budgeted $100,000.

Mayor Roseberry, who did not have a vote, told our reporter: "The winning bid that was being offered was more consistent with what the council wanted for the building."

We are not entirely sure what that statement means. It does, however, imply that the council doesn't feel it has to justify spending close to $20,000 more than they had to and not keeping the money in the county.

We have two questions for the Oxford Council: Why bid out the furniture if you knew what you wanted? Two, why not give our reporter a straightforward answer as to why you made this decision?