To be or not to

The rest of the article ("Mayor Rob Ford slams $75K chair purchase" on Yahoo! Canada News on September 27, 2013) is fine, but what the fun is going on with that middle paragraph above? The first sentence is utter nonsense, and the second one seems to start fine but then abruptly ends without a proper conclusion. My conclusion: the writer was drunk at the time of writing, and the editor (if there even is one) didn't care to, you know, edit. The second sentence seemed to start fine, but it actually didn't. The article details how 30 chairs were purchased for $75,000. So how does the $25,000 relate to this story? My guess: $75,000 divided by 30 equals $2,500 and then an extra 0 was tacked on. Then,

I was curious about that middle paragraph (and paragraph is used very loosely) so I looked up the article on CBC News, where I believe it originated. ("Mayor Rob Ford slams $75K chair purchase" on CBC News online on September 27, 2013.) Some of the confusion was cleared up, but the absense of apostrophes is puzzling, and the $25,000 is there with no explanation. Click an image to enlarge it.