Posted on Friday, 23rd January 2009 by Bruce
A phone call from Dan Bice is becoming the Milwaukee-area equivalent of heading to the office and finding Brian Ross and an ABC News camera crew waiting for you in the parking lot. (For the record, that’s one morning I’d keep on driving.)
Must be why so many of your elected officials won’t even give him the courtesy of a hollaback. What they’re NOT afraid of, however, is finding creative ways to spend your money. From today’s edition of Bice’s “No Quarter” column in the J/S:
“Two county supervisors, Toni Clark and Elizabeth Coggs, are billing taxpayers thousands of dollars - including a hotel stay for one of them at $644 per night - so they could spend five days in Washington, D.C., this past week, a trip that allowed the pair to attend various inaugural festivities.“Did I go to the swearing in?” Clark said Thursday. “Yes, I did.”
Clark, however, cut off the interview, saying she was in the middle of children’s basketball practice. Coggs did not return repeated calls to her office and cell phone.
Terrence Cooley, chief of staff for Board Chairman Lee Holloway, said he signed off on the trip in early December because it appeared legitimate. Clark and Coggs said they were going to Washington to meet with U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, county lobbyists and others.
“Nobody said anything about the inaugural,” Cooley said.
He said he, of course, realized that the trip would coincide with the Obama festivities, but he said he wouldn’t speculate on whether Clark and Coggs designed the trip so they could be in D.C. when the new president was taking his oath.
“This is when they could schedule the meetings,” Cooley said.
Officials haven’t done a final tally of the cost for the two supervisors to jet to D.C., but the figure is expected to come in around $4,000, including airfare, hotel and other expenses.”
Even at an inaugural premium, $600.00 a night still gets you one mack daddy hotel room in the District of Cool. But, heck, they deserve it. They are Milwaukee county supervisors, after all.
Posted in Home | Comments (18) |
18 Responses to “An historic opportunity for two Milwaukee County Supervisors - YOU paid for it.”
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January 23rd, 2009 at 7:46 am
File this one under the category of: “BECAUSE I CAN.”
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:30 am
It’s ok, we can just raise the sales taxes and get the oil companies to pay for it. How about some more paid sick leave and free checks on top.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:34 am
I gotta say… Bice is doing a great job since dumping his other half. What was his name again?
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:56 am
This makes me even angrier when I think about how I didn’t get to go, after planning to do so. But I was actually working on behalf of the people and thought that my projects here were more important.
Grr…..
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:10 am
Bice is obviously a racist.
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:29 am
Come to think of it, it is in keeping with their leader’s motto: “Yes, we can”.
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:47 am
And it NEVER once. NOT ONCE. Occurred to him to ask if this might possibly blossom into a trip to the inauguration?
Moron!
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:57 am
“but he said he wouldn’t speculate on whether Clark and Coggs designed the trip so they could be in D.C. when the new president was taking his oath.”
Sorry, but that is just crazy, but I guess he is not paid to think.
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:08 pm
hope and change
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:11 pm
So Milwaukee County has so much money that its supervisors can splurge on stuff like this?
Aren’t they taking money away from their constituents? They are stealing (theft by fraud) from their black constituents.
What about MCTS? What about all the other thin gs they want to spend our money on?
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Just another entitlement openly approved by Lee Holloway and his chief of staff. Of course, the constituents of these people (yeah Judges Kessler and Curley, I said these people) will hold them accountable, right?
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Keep up the good work Mr. Bice. So who in county government will follow-up and check to see if they were doing what they were supposed to be doing to justify the trip in the first place?
They could have easily met with Gwen Moore here in Wisconsin. As for the “county lobbyists and others”, what are the chances that these meetings could only happen in DC? Obviously this was just cover for attending the inauguration on the County’s dime (or 6440 dimes per night apparently).
I don’t care that they wanted to go…but if it’s not County business, the County has no business paying for it.
The galling thing is that the thought never occurs to them to pay for it themselves. No change there…apparently no hope either.
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:36 pm
I think Cooley should be fired for “signing off” on this expense. If he’s not going to review expenses and question them when presented,then he is obviously not doing his job. What else is he missing?
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:24 pm
What were they lobbying for?
January 24th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Bice also notes :
Elizabeth Coggs - the veteran county supervisor and current Finance Committee chairwoman - is seeking a restraining order against her daughter and ex-husband.
It’s not clear what prompted Coggs to file suit Dec. 29 against Priscilla Coggs-Jones and Wendell Jones, whom she divorced last year.
Maybe she went to DC for personal safety reason?
January 25th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
So classy, especially since Gwen was in Milwaukee over Christmas. Hey it’s America and someone else pays my ride.
This is how our county rolls. Aren’t we proud?
January 26th, 2009 at 7:17 am
Dan Bice has this followup today: http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/noquarter/38310244.html
March 10th, 2009 at 5:12 am
[...] See our past coverage, here. [...]