$500,000 in Reserves?

Why is it that the recent former mayor and the current city aldermen say that the city has a half million dollars in reserves, but when downtown merchants bring up the need to replace missing lights so that downtown won't be so dark at night the city staff always says they don't have any money? Given that one of the lights was hit by a truck and, presumably, the city collected insurance for it why wasn't it replaced at the time? Now the city officials say "that was so long ago that we don't know what happened, but we don't have enough money now."

Hey folks, either there is enough money to replace three lousy lights downtown, or the city is in far worse financial shape than we've been led to believe. Perhaps those reserves aren't really reserves after all. Perhaps it is money that's already promised. Perhaps for grinder pumps.

WAG