A couple of outraged FBvians have vented to me about the expensive inauguration party party for the City Council. My thoughts:
1. Solid work on the headline for the story: “Price isn’t slight for inauguration shindig.”
2. The knee-jerk reaction is to call the council irresponsible for spending that much. But hang on. Notice that $9,000 of the cost was covered by private donations. Now we’re down to about $20k. And the council actually approved in its budget a $50k party. By that measure, at least, they kept costs down. Also note that 1,000 people attended the party (hey, it’s a big city). I’m no party planner, but $30 per head for breakfast and all that at the Meyerson sounds pretty reasonable.
3. That said, $3,750 for photography services? We work with some great freelance photographers here at the magazine. Any one of them would have done the job for a fraction of that.
