To the Editor:

In Thursday’s edition of the Beacon (March 24), I read the article entitled “Planning Ahead” and was shocked to find the paragraph on page 5, “Ladouceur said that he essentially thinks it [the five-year projection] should be done in the form of a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet so that different variables can be plugged in.”

Here is a little history of release dates for available spreadsheet programs.  VisiCalc was released in 1979 for Apple computers.  For IBM computers, the very popular Lotus 1-2-3 in 1983.  Then the long-established Excel from Microsoft in 1985 was released.  These have been available for almost 40 years!

I had assumed that the third largest city in Rhode Island would be using one of the most useful, late twentieth, early twenty-first century tools for the task of numbers and projections.  What is our current method?

Is it the abacus, the Comptometer, or maybe the RadioShack EC-100?  Do we now transfer those numbers to a stone tablet or maybe something more updated, say papyrus?

It’s no wonder why our city is in such dire financial trouble.

Jerry Ferreira, Warwick