Thu
Jan 10 2008
11:17:am
By: Dumping Ground  shortURL

The Sheriff stated in the Blount Today (link...) article;

“We generate money for our vehicles through our federal inmate program,” he said. Berrong buys an average of 25 vehicles annually.

“If you didn’t buy 25 a year, in four years you have to buy 100,” he said. “Based on needs we have, it just makes good sense to do 25 a year.”

“This time of year, we have 25 more (cars) than normal because our new fleet comes in,” said Berrong. “In the next couple or three months we’ll auction off 20 to 25 vehicles. You could say our fleet is 225.”

"Berrong countered that he has consistently bought 25 cars year."

What happened in 2007? Did Neil Sandler stiff the Sheriff? If the Sheriff "has" to buy 25 a year, how did we revert back to 2005 totals? And what happened to 4 of our motorcycles? I don't remember 4 motorcycle accidents last year. Were they "scrapped" anyway?

The fact those who would like this all to go away claim "no further investigation" is necessary is a farce.

Lincoln Road

I never saw a date of Lincoln Road's re-opening. They will re-open Lincoln Road, won't they? The journey to my Bio-Diesel seems to be getting longer, and I won't dare drop a penney at any dos equis station.

viva Evo Morales

Lincoln Road

Lincoln and Hall Road should be back open Saturday evening once the clean up is finished and they've set the traffic light poles and hooked everything back up.

News vs Stories

*notice the Daily Times complacency in the "story". It would have been much easier to show a google overhead satellite image of how large the parcel actually is instead of going to the location and getting a shot of the "Snuffy Smith" storage shack they put on the front page. I wonder who chose that photo?

(link...)

(link...)

Notice the juxtaposition of the pictures. From the Daily Times, you either get news or a story. Guess which is which.

And FYI - As stated several times on this blog, The Daily Times legal attorney Rob Goddard who is also the mayors attorney paid by local tax dollars - also works as Vice Chair of the local GOP serving under Bennett. (link...)

Cozy ain't it?

GOP phone?

Chairman
Mr. David Bennett
Phone: (865) 681-2230
Work Phone: (865) 273-5719

Does the GOP or Mr. Bennett pay for the bill for this phone line?

Reason number 1,728 Dave Bennett should not have a place in this county's management.

Seriously...

How can you manage the county's finances, be assistant mayor, campaign for United Way, hold down the Republican fort by taking phone calls and campaigning for various GOP candidates all in the same 8-10 hour day from your office in the courthouse?

You are kidding?

Why even bother to have elections? We can just let the GOP run the place and skip all that pesky "open meetings law" stuff.

Rather interesting

If you go back into the County Commission minutes for the last seven years you can clearly see where they ask permission to sell a boat here or sell two cars with rollbars to an LEA in another county. I think I even saw a drug dog sold with permission of the County Commission. So all this still makes zero sense unless of course there is a new, new, new math ah la Blount County style.

"If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say this or that even, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death."
- George Orwell, 1984

Our own Greenspan

While we are on the subject of Bennett's mastery of financing and salesmanship, let me point out the following;

On behalf of the citizens, Bennett negotiated a racetrack deal for a polluted couple of acres at the far end the of county for $785,000 (the county had assessed the property for $354K - 2.2. times less than what we paid) (link...).
On behalf of his builder buddy, Bennett was able to negotiate approximately $176K an acre for the most prime commercial real estate in Blount County. (link...) *

I wonder if there are any TIF's involved?

*notice the Daily Times complacency in the "story". It would have been much easier to show a google overhead satellite image of how large the parcel actually is instead of going to the location and getting a shot of the "Snuffy Smith" storage shack they put on the front page. I wonder who chose that photo?

Totals

Bennett claimed there were cars taken out of the system but not off the books. In July, Blount Today stated the following;

Sheriff Berrong, Mayor Jerry Cunningham and Assistant County Mayor Dave Bennett have provided numbers (249), including vehicles that were donated to the Sheriff’s office and surplus vehicles that are used for parts.

If these numbers in July included cars that did not exist ("Bingo. The paperwork didn’t jibe."), then how does the state come up with a total of 258 for 2007? If at 249, Bennett was counting cars that don't exist - did the state count even more cars that don't exist?

And while we're playing games, are there any reporters playing "Pin the Tail on the Insurance Company"?

“A lot of this was related to our insurance company who came in and told us we needed to take two-thirds of our vehicles off the road (that) they weren’t road-worthy,” Berrong said.

Still curious as which company instructed the Sheriff to buy more cars as Blount is self insured.

they still have the 4 motorcycles

Just for your information about them, they still have the four motorcycles. Can't ride them all year round but they do have them.

Only the states figures matter

It's not my information, or yours, I'm relying on. Look at the chart from the state audit above. In 2004 we had none, '05 we had 4, in '06 we had 10, but then in '07 we went down to 6. Like you said, they can't use them all year so there is no way we should have "lost" inventory from any of these years. All these bikes should all be in good shape.

So, how did we lose 4 from 2006 to 2007?

they may well have the 6

I have seen them on the road and on the dragon. when they worked on weekends.

they may well have the

they may well have the 6

They may well have 26, no one seems to know.

That's the point of the original post

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