However I do think you’re overlooking the quality that we technology people hold most dear, and that’s _how_ to think. This isn’t a defense of Andy, or of a poke at your rhetoric.

What I mean by this is best illustrated with a story – a couple decades ago I did some work for an IT manager in his late fifties at a large oil company who spent years of his life doing work about as far away from technology as possible. He went out, got an MIS degree, started his new career. Being a young nerd who assumed everyone knew how to program, I asked him – it’s straight forward, why get a degree in this stuff?? He replied that the value wasn’t in learning about the equipment or languages – the value was that it taught him how to think the right way about technology – to understand the abstract models, the metaphors, and to get his mind thinking systemically.

This is an under-appreciated distinction, but is very apparent when you spend time interviewing people to fill jobs that require IT system design, functional decomposition and troubleshooting. Some people have the right thinking skills, others just don’t. And more importantly, many have to make a deliberate effort like the gentleman above to build those skills.

I’d expect that while Andy may not have direct experience with a LE technology platforms, he would bring the tech thinking skills to the table, which is perhaps more than his competitor can say. I have no idea how skilled he is, but I think you may underestimate the portability of solid tech skills and overestimate the difficulties of applying them to new problem sets.

Boy, as if Andy’s “libertarian” streak didn’t glare through THAT answer:
“You’re on the hook every year for your property tax (obligation). That bothers me. My philosophical bent would be, my preference would be for a consumptive tax versus a property tax.”

So, some widow living on a fixed income in a Mountain View apartment would be saddled with a sales tax just so Jerry Prevo and Bill Sheffield — who bring down a quarter million a year or more — would be spared that “bothers me” home property tax. That tells me everything I need to know about the choice here.