They're Not Laptops, They're Tablets

It turns out there is more to the Langley City Council decision to spend big bucks for a set of computers for Mayor and Council. In a scathing column today, Times reporter Monique Tamminga points out that councillors went for the fancy tablet computers:

At the last meeting of the year, councillors generously gifted themselves 'tablet' computers worth $3,500 each. I can't help but mock this excessive purchase, as the editor of this newspaper did last week.

While regular folk delight in owning very capable laptops at a cost of $400 to $1,000, the six councillors who run a City of 24,000 people deliver themselves the most expensive electronic pen and paper devices I've ever heard of. These computers are on top of the Blackberry phones they gave themselves sometime earlier.

That's a lot of technology for a council whose average night meeting often doesn't last much longer than an hour, and includes an intensive review of 'what's hot in recreation' and 'what's cool in the pool.'

She continues on:

On most occasions, the agenda items are minimal. Council deliberates most of the time in front of an empty chamber, void of any audience. Shaw TV is even cancelling its live broadcasts of their semi-monthly meetings.

The reason they give for needing these computers is to be able to write notes to themselves on the tablet, as items come up on the agenda. Of course, this could just as easily be achieved by typing directly onto the agenda uploaded to any average laptop that costs one-quarter the price, but I digress. Paying out $21,950 for new fandango technology will also save the City 21,000 sheets of paper per year. (There must be a green reason).

And a bit more:

While the City has done a prudent job of paying off its debt and has all the time in the world to create an innovative vision for its future, it doesn't deal with complicated ALR issues and a massive road and infrastructure inventory like the Township does. Its biggest issue this year was a Spirit Square that cost taxpayers more than half a million dollars.

Meanwhile, this same council voted that downtown business owners should pay nearly $1,000 more in property taxes in 2009. Single family home owners faced a 4.5 per cent tax boost, or around $99 more.

For those of you non-techies who have never heard of a tablet computer, click here. It's pretty much the Cadillac of laptop computers.

I see the value of having a computer at the Council table. I've brought my personally-purchased Dell Inspiron laptop along for the past couple of years, and it's great. I have a Word document with notes, access to the Township and Google mapping and street view systems, and I usually copy presenters' powerpoint presentations to it. But I don't see why a tablet would be necessary--and it looks terrible for City Council.