My Tax Money at Work

TimesDispatch.com | iBook sale erupts in chaos, stampede
All high school, and now middle school, students in Henrico County have a school-issued laptop. Up until this fall, the laptops were Mac iBooks. For the upcoming year they switched to dell laptops for high schools. After making sure that the middle schools had enough iBooks and offering graduating seniors (class of 2005) iBooks (for $50), the remaining 1,000 were put on sale. First the sale was to anyone and then it backed down to county residents had first crack. 12,000 people showed up for the 1,000 computers (one to a customer). The link to the Richmond Times Disgrace gives a flavor of the morning.
We got some real bright bulbs spending our money in the county:
The county management, including the Police Chief were surprised by the rush and weren't prepared for it. Never mind that this has been an internet buzz for a couple of months and there has been some contentious county supervisors meetings about it. A few clues:

No one was to be in line before 6:00 AM. No one noticed that the line started forming at 1:00 AM
3 off-duty cops were hired for crowd control. After the near riot, 41 of the ~100 Henrico Police were called to the Raceway Complex for crowd control, but not until after the 7:00 AM rush.
17 people were removed by ambulance.
People brought kids to this mash. One stroller was destroyed in the first rush.
Patricia has used one for three years and has had problems with the ones she has been issued. She didn't want one of these. They have high security and you cannot load things like printer drivers on them. I would think that the county culled the worst ones out for sale, however, seeing how they handled this, they probably gave the best ones away. So, for a $20 mil program, the county recouped $50,000 (less the cost of the RIR complex, half the police force, ambulance service and other minor expenses).

I'm not sure how many of our county "leaders" you would have to pack together to get a 5-watt bulb. But News at 6 was a real laugher.