The king's men are doing fine

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 28 May 2001 10:03:04 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED OCT. 23, 2000
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
The king's men are doing fine

It's been a decade since a Clark County audit revealed more than a million dollars being wasted providing fancy free vehicles to top-level Las Vegas public servants who (it turned out) didn't need them for "emergency responses," at all.

At the time, the county's Vehicle Review Committee removed 71 executive vehicles from 24-hour status and adopted rules which supposedly prohibited such freebies except in cases where emergency night or weekend responses were really, you know ... necessary.

Well, guess what? It turns out that shortly after those new rules went into effect -- as soon as the heat was off and no one was watching -- county managers and supervisors went right back to playing Santa Claus in July.

Hey, the hours may be short and the pay may be high, but how do you like my free truck?

County employee compensation is already a too-often-ignored factor in the skyrocketing cost of local government -- outpacing salary increases not only in the private sector (the lowly taxpayers who foot the bills) but even among bureaucrats at the state and federal level.

But do those who tally up those county pay packages also factor in the county executives' 24-hour use of these vehicles -- often top-of-the-line sport utilities costing more than $30,000?

"These people are getting a sweetheart deal," comments Paul Brown, regional director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, a watchdog group.

"If it means they don 't have to buy a second car, they are saving a lot of money. ... Those of us who are paying the taxes would love a deal like that."

County commissioners are so far expressing ignorance or puzzlement over the fact that a newer audit -- released a year ago in October 1999 -- found 60 of 79 vehicles assigned to top-level supervisors still aren't really necessary to respond to nighttime and weekend emergencies. Yet a year later -- and a decade after the same problem was exposed back in 1990 -- the fancy and largely unmarked SUVs are apparently still being driven around and parked in home driveways as little more than "seniority perks."

The audit did not include the Clark County Fire Department, but did cover McCarran International Airport, where auditors found at least half of the 18 "emergency" vehicles currently assigned to senior staff aren't really needed for emergencies.

The Public Works Department turns out to have 41 of the luxury super-trucks assigned primarily to top-level supervisors. Yet during an eight-month period ending in April 1999, the auditors found, only 14 supervisors from two divisions were called out to a total of nine emergencies.

" I don't know how it happened," comments Bruce Woodbury, one of the elected County Commissioners who's supposed to make sure such abuses aren't ongoing. "I guess people, through practice and custom, were using procedures that were in violation of policy."

Contacted last week, Don Burnette, the county's director of administrative services, yawned and stretched and couldn't even say how much it costs to buy and maintain these 60-odd "emergency" vehicles, or why the supposed internal controls put in place a decade ago haven't been enforced.

"The (1999) audit identified some clear cases where individuals and departments were assigned vehicles ... when the necessity for the vehicle wasn't there," Burnette admits. But not to worry, now that there's been an audit, it's all going to be fixed, Mr. Burnette assures us.

"New, stronger regulations" are due to be issued in about a month, agrees County spokesman Doug Bradford.

Well, isn't that special? As we all know, whenever existing regulations aren't being enforced, the foolproof solution is to come out with a set of newer, "stronger" regulations to not bother enforcing.

Instead of going through all these fruitless motions, maybe the County Commission should just have those 60 top-level supervisors drive their Big Wheels down past Mr. Burnette's office once a year, where he can stand on the sidewalk as each fancy Ford Expedition and Chevy Tahoe cruises past, shaking his finger and sternly warning them, "Bad truck! Bad SUV! You've been very, very wasteful!"

Then, their bad vehicles duly chastised, everyone can drive home and continue using their free $30,000 extended-cab heavy-duty luxury county vehicles for pizza runs and family trips to the lake, while the taxpayers who paid the bills wait in line down at the DMV to shell out for the "privilege" of being allowed to drive the battered eight-year-old compacts they bought with their own paychecks, until the next "audit." (No wonder these public servants no longer like to be called "public servants" -- it does indeed start to sound like we've got that whole thing backwards.)

Either that, or the Country Commissioners could identify everyone who violated the rules, and -- you know -- fire them.

But hey, what kind of example would that be? A couple million here, a couple million there ... it's not as though we're talking real money.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and editor of Financial Privacy Report (subscribe by calling Nelson at 612-895-8757.) His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available by dialing 1-800-244-2224; or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.

Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair