I have a saying I pilfered from the liner notes of R.E.M.’s Dead Letter Office album and that saying is, “A little bit of uh-huh and a whole lot of oh yeah.”

That being said, this is a column about the city’s proposed budget, specifically the capital expenditure portion of the city’s proposed budget.

I’m digging that the city saw fit to make a new ladder truck a priority for the fire department and that the city is going to make a modest appropriation that will allow the state Department of Transportation to take over all the traffic signals in the city.

The knuckle boom is worth its weight in gold, although the little jury in my head is still out on $40,000 for a 15-passenger van for the inmate program when I really feel a used van would do just as well.

Street improvements are a must so that’s cool but then comes my A Little Bit of Uh-huh and a Whole Lot of Oh Yeah moment — $6,000 the Beautification Committee is requesting to place a fountain and walkway bridge in the general area of the entrance to the cemetery.

I’m sure you’re seeing where my ALBOUHAAWLOOY moment is coming from.

This is a city where seven positions remain frozen and employee numbers have dwindled from 165 ten years ago to 134 today.

Then there’s the 1 million debt each year until the cows come home for the theater or Gatling decides to buy — I personally think the cows will come home first.

So, you see why I’m in this state of a little bit of uh-huh and a whole lot of oh yeah when $6,000 may just be squandered on something that is not needed and serves the citizens or mankind in general no purpose at all.

A little bit of uh-huh and a whole lot of oh yeah is simply a way to express chagrin, cynicism, doubt, bewilderment and puzzlement. It is the writer’s way of saying SMH, even though I’m not driving while texting it but standing on a bridge and watching a fountain shoot water into the air at the cemetery.

It’s highly doubtful the Beautification Committee is going to find a fountain and bridge for $6,000 and if they do I’m not so sure I would want to be walking across it or standing on it pondering the meaning of life at dusk.

A bridge over the pond at the cemetery makes no sense. You can’t even fish at the pond and even though it’s a relatively small amount, that it’s in the proposed budget at all to me is like saying, “Problem, what problem? There’s no problem.”

The problem is there is a problem and this budget is simply a thumb in the dike that only eases the pain momentarily. The reality is at some point the dam is going to burst unless something is done about the theater, whether it is having some gumption to risk your political career and call for a tax increase or simply waking up from the dream that Gatling is really going to buy the theater.

That’s what bothers me most about the bridge and the walkway — it’s chocolate ice cream on top of chocolate cake, it’s not needed, serves no purpose and even though it’s only $6,000 it’s extravagant.

If this is approved and $40,000 is spent on a new van when in these tight times a used one would do just as well, then something is terribly wrong with priorities in the city.

I hope council sees fit to have a budget work session on the matter and gets out their red pens and budget-cutting knives and goes right to the bridge and walkway and cuts that out like a bad part on an otherwise good apple.

If not, I think I can see a lot of folks either scratching their heads or being like myself and saying, “That’s a little bit of uh-huh and a whole lot of oh yeah.” — Lance Martin

Lance Martin is editor and publisher of rrspin.com