What I found interesting was that they didn't even look at other alternatives which do allow Note taking, or do any further research.
They could have gone with Tablets from companies like Fujitsu, Motion, etc which would be much more flexiable, and allow them to annotate the files with appropriate utilities. Of if an eInk device was needed, iRex's Digital reader is made for this task, to consume and annotate Documents, thoug it does not have the "sexy" over the air connectivity.
But then again expecting any government, especially local government to make tech decisions sensibly is a lost cause

.