Letter to the Editor: The price of a cup of coffee

Letter to the Editor from Donald Weyer:

"I read the news today, oh boy; well, I just had to laugh... found my way downstairs and drank a cup (of coffee)! 

Batavia Assistant City Manager Erik Fix, as he sees it, Batavia property owners get all those things (city services) 'for the price of a cup of coffee a day.' This profound insight bruited out by Fix in Joanne Beck's news article (the news I read today), in The Batavian, dated Jan. 23, reporting on Batavia City Council review of the 2024 budget, held at City Hall on Jan. 22.

I'm sorry, Erik, I credited you with a banker's/accountant's eagle eye in money matters (refer to my opinion letter in The Batavian of Jan. 24 concerning plans for Austin Park), but in this latest particular pronouncement, you're proclaiming some fuzzy math or arithmetic. By my own personal calculations:

1. I get a minimum of 50 cups of coffee and a maximum of 100 cups of coffee from a 30.6-ounce can of ground coffee.
2. That 30.6-ounce can varies in price from $7.99 to $14.99.
3. Doing some basic computations, in the worst case for my pocketbook and coffee fix, 50 cups at $14.99, 1 cup per day, and using a 365-day year: 365 days divided by 50 cups = 7.3 cans per year; 7.3 cans × $14.99 per can = $109.427 per year, rounded up to $109.50 per year. Alternatively, $14.99 per can divided by 50 cups per can = $0.2998 per cup, rounded up to $0.30 per cup. $0.30 per cup × 365 days = $109.50 per year. Again, $109.50 is my cost for the price of a cup a day for a year of coffee drinking, Erik.
4. I showed all my work in two different computations and came up with the same results; I can't do anything more. You can't slice it any other way,  Honorable Erik; please show your work and/or the way you slice it.
5. My Batavia city tax bill for 2023 was $539.38. That would be the cost of approximately five cups of coffee per day, not a cup of coffee a day. ($539.38 divided by 365 = $1.48 per day; $1.48 divided by $0.30 [my cost per cup] = 4.93333 cups, rounded up to five cups per day to pay the city tax bill per day. (Not the one cup of coffee per day that the honorable Mr. Fix imagines or fantasizes or wishes on a star about. Now, Erik, you may choose to pay a profligate $1.48 per day for your coffee cup, compared to my miserly (financially perspicacious?) $0.30 per cup per day; it's a free country.
6. Again, I'm showing all my work to avoid any confusion, accusation, even duplicity or financial abracadabra or funny business. Erik, sir, please show your work.
7. To reiterate, I'm not getting, as a Batavia city property owner, all the Batavia city services for the price of a cup of coffee a day. Will you issue a refund to me for my overpayment ($539.38 - $109.50 = $429.88)? I could use an extra $429.88! Couldn't you?

I trust that I haven't bored you, enraged, or exasperated you, patient reader, with all these numbers; actually, they've made me a little dizzy. But I was taught how to be sensible, logical, responsible, practical, and because I was feeling so logical.