POTUS visited the Dairy State this past week. He gave the commencement address at a local university and visited some other places around the state.
Well one mayor is pretty ticked off at the visit.
According to the mayor of La Crosse, WI, the visit cost his town somewhere around $50-$60k. He does not feel that the town or it’s taxpayers should have to pay for it, as the visit was nothing more than a political rally. He plans on submitting a bill to the RNC, and failing that, taking the RNC to court.
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Here’s a link: http://www.lacrossetribune.com/articles/2004/05/14/news/00lead.txt
Looks like an interesting issue especially for cash strapped towns. The problem may be the lack of consistency since he’s trying to bill Bush almost 20x what he billed Gore in 2000 for a similar trip.
I think this sort of stuff done after the fact is more about PR and grandstanding than protecting tax payers. They knew Bush was coming for months, why not make this bill known ahead of time?
It’s a good point he’s making, but I have a feeling his political leanings is driving his aggressiveness and selective enforcement.
From reading the artcle it looks like part of the issue was that the police were sent to another town to provide security; had to rent a bus and all of that. Gore/Lieberman’s visit was right in town and did not include busing police officers out of town.
However, I think that a city/town should notify the campaigns up front if they are going to charge for services like this.
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