For people living on the coasts, it’s easy to feel the digital world is too much with you. Living here in Phoenix, I get to see how the real world is still operating.

Case in point: The Mayor of Phoenix, Phil Gordon, is engaged in a political range war with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has built a big public following with his media-savvy law and order shtick. In one sideshow of their disputes, Arpaio has opened an investigation of the mayor and requested 10,000 pages of emails from his office.

I don’t care about the particulars of the fight. As reported by the Arizona Republic, however, here’s how the logistics of the transfer are being carried out:

The blanket request took four city departments hundreds of hours of staff research time, has produced more than 10,000 pages of material and cost about $2,000 to process.

Sheriff’s deputies did save taxpayers some money by using a scanner to copy the e-mails instead of paying 19 cents per page.

In other words, after a request for the emails, the city printed out 10,000 pages’ worth … and then the sherrif’s office sent over someone to scan them.

And the local paper describes the arrangement as “saving the taxpayers money.”