His Lardship's arithmetic: Minnan-Wong sees big bucks in old utility vehicles

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong offers some interesting figures on the upcoming sale by auction of 41 vehicles recently declared surplus by the Toronto water department in today’s Star. “We kept the newer ones and got rid of the older ones,” said the department spokesman. The review apparently used criteria in place since 2004 in its review to identify the 41 oldest pickup trucks, vans and dump trucks in its fleet as surplus.

But that word “surplus” was magic to the ears of Mayor Ford's inner circle. Councillor Doug Holyday opined, “We’re the last people on Earth that can afford to have surplus anything hanging around.” Minnan-Wong got out his calculator and did some ultra-magical ciphering when contacted by the Star:

The surplus vehicles are expected to fetch almost $3 million, said Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, chair of the public works and infrastructure committee. “We’ve found vehicles that aren’t necessary, that we don’t need, which we will sell and raise an estimated $2.9 million,” Minnan-Wong said. “In addition to that, we’ll save other monies on insurance, gas and maintenance.”

Let's do some math of our own. Minnan-Wong’s claim refers only to the revenues from selling the surplus vehicles, not the costs of running or manning them. Thus,  Minnan-Wong‘s "estimated $2.9 million" for the 41 vehicles works out to an incredible $71,000 per decrepit utility vehicle. Minnan-Wong does not provide some important details, like what planet the auction will be held on, or the list of brainless, deep-pocketed and free-spending morons he was going to invite to bid at this magic auction, or what brand of magic-bean calculator he performed his amazing arithmetic on.