You know I have to hold my nose as I write this, so to speak, however, Bob Nielson stepped it up last night when a representative of Tetra Tech (our engineer) made a report. Another "unforeseen" issue has come up that will cost us money. And I think it had something to do with our huge carp population or maybe it was a fish barrier for the many carp we have in our lakes. I got lost in their discussion.
Nielson was not happy the engineering budget is not in check. He said "we have two budget problems. We have a legal problem and we have an engineering problem". He added "we get into these projects and lose focus. These things mount up. We're losing sight of the finish line and its very expensive to lose focus". BRAVO!
I started to lose focus myself because I think they were talking about building a fish barrier. What? Huh? What are we doing? They were also discussing "a population of carp". Carp? Where? Kids, have you ever caught a carp in Gateway? We had a fishing tournament a few years ago up by the pool and out of 50 kids we caught a turtle and a really big boot. And getting back to my first story, can we ask lee County to take over our carp problem.
Nielson said recently "I was quoted as saying how did this happen?" referring to a recent Gazette issue where I criticized him for saying just that, "how did this happen?" He said that following a discussion about a budget item that was totally overspent. My point was he's the board chairman and he should know how those things happen. he should never have to ask how did this happen. I think he's being proactive here.
