Mark Ridley Thomas
"Is Supervisor Thomas in?"
Here's a quick quiz for you: How much does it cost to remodel an office?
$5,000?
$10,000?
$20,000?
$50,000?
$100,000?
Well if you are a Los Angeles county supervisor named Mark Ridley Thomas, not even close. Want to try again?
$707,000? Mark Ridley Thomas-come on down!
Yes, that is the price for Thomas to have his office remodeled. And that's not even including the furniture, which will cost another $330,000, making a grand total of over $1,000,000. For that much money, you could buy a couple of nice homes in LA county-maybe even three. But that's how much the tax-payer is shelling out for the job.
But, you ask, are there not any checks and balances? Of course there are. You see, Thomas's request has to be approved by the other 4 county supervisors, who work down the hall and could easily check and see if the work was needed or within acceptable price estimates.
They approved it.
Of course, LA's two muckraking (that's a compliment)talk jocks, John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou of the the John and Ken Show, are all over this. Yesterday, they lured one of the other supervisors, some hapless dope named Don Knabe, on to their show to explain how he and the others could sign off on this outrageous abuse of the tax-payers money. Poor Mr Knabe had no clue. He acknowledged that he had voted for the work, had not seen Thomas' office for over a year when his (Thomas) predecessor was occupying it, stated that he had no plans to overturn the vote-then repeatedly told his interviewers that they had to talk to Thomas because he (Thomas) was spending the money.
Of course, he was repeatedly reminded by John and Ken that he and the other supervisors had voted to authorize the work. All in all, Knabe was embarrassed by his performance.
And who are the other supervisors? Oh, you had to ask. They are Zev Yaroslavsky, Mike Antonovich, and Gloria Molina, dinosaurs all, who have been in LA politics since the town was a pueblo.
Here is their website if you are interested.
http://bos.co.la.us/
Thomas himself has not acquitted himself well in responding to enquiries about this boondoggle. In an interview with the local ABC news, Thomas defended his expenditure by aggressively stating that it was time to bring his office up to par with the others-adding that "that day" (when his quarters would be less than the others) was over, done, dead-or something like that. In other words, Thomas was, shall we say, if not throwing out a race card, was flashing it by implying that he was not going to "sit in the back of the bus" (my words).
So there is the latest chapter in the skulduggery that goes on in LA poliitics. Only the tax-payers of LA County, who have to pay for this, can hope to overturn this scandal by making their voices heard. I am attaching a link from the John and Ken webpage where anyone who is interested can send an e-mail to Thomas' office.
http://www.kfiam640.com/pages/johnandkenshow/
I'll tell you something else that needs to be done here. Someone needs to investigate if this outrageous sum is connected to any past campaign donors to Thomas or if there is more than just lavish spending involved.
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