Community Commentary:

Almost every week, the absurd logic displayed by some councilmen is worth the price of admission to the City Council chambers. The video recording of last Tuesday’s session was a keeper.

For the first time in recent memory, the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report was challenged by several members of the public. The city manager and three of the councilmen thought they simply could note and file the report. Imagine that. We get the formal results of operations of the city for the last fiscal year, and they could not wait to shove the report into a drawer.

We had the usual retort by Councilman Dave Weaver about how many years he’s been there and never had to sit and listen to people about the issue at hand. Then we had remarks by Councilman Frank Quintero that since we had the blessings of a large accounting firm, we don’t need to review the results noted on the report. So the report passed the formal audit, but the information that it contained — meaning the results of their policies — could not be discussed.

I’d like to remind Quintero of Enron. That was the company that had its financial statements “blessed” by the signature of a much larger accounting firm — Arthur Andersen. Never mind that they lost a shareholder lawsuit; never mind that both companies went bankrupt. So much for the blessing of the financials without evaluating the content.

Then we had a display of litigator prowess by Councilman Ara Najarian. He followed up our inquiries about the report with a series of canned questions aimed at highlighting the value of an external award given by an independent group of professional financial officers. We could also have a panel of doctors validate Najarian’s weight and cholesterol level for accuracy in reporting, but it doesn’t address the behavior that led to his indicators in the first place.