Columbia, S.C. – a.k.a. the “Face of the Recession” – is so broke that it has run out of “keys to the city,” you know, those big ceremonial keys that get handed out to bureaucrats and other politically-connected types as a way of honoring their years of boondoggling.
“We are currently out of keys to the city and are ordering some for the Mayor out of his expense account,” writes Julie Ruff, an assistant to Columbia Mayor Bob Coble.
Ruff alerted the members of Columbia’s Sh*tty … err, City Council to this dire predicament in an email obtained exclusively by FITS.
Columbia, you’ll recall, has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons lately. Among them? The multimillion-dollar deficits it has rung up in recent years (while raising the salaries of its top bureaucrats) and the fact that two of its Council members have been dipping their grubby paws into the public trough for their own personal benefit (here’s the most flagrant example of that, in case you were wondering).
On top of all that incompetence and corruption, Columbia recently committed to dump another $150 million into “Ineptovista,” a botched “research campus” that has literally set the standard for the failure of government-run economic development projects. It’s also helping foot the bill for a massive museum expansion – hardly the sort of thing government should be spending money on in any economic climate, let alone one like this.
Oh, and then there’s that whole “Face of the Recession” thing we mentioned earlier, which we’re guessing can’t be good for business.
Anyway, God forbid any of that get in the way of these local jokers being able to hand out their beloved “keys to the city.”
In fact, the email from the Mayor’s office about the keys prompted at least one angry response.
“I realize there is no money but something is seriously wrong when council members have to pay for keys to give to honor individuals,” City Councilman E.W. Cromartie wrote in an email response to Ruff. “Its (sic) costing council members out of their pockets to effectively serve as we are not millionaires.”
Here’s a copy of Cromartie’s email (click to enlarge …)
Frankly, we think that Cromartie – who is basically a low rent version of D.C. poverty pimp Jim Clyburn – doth protest too much.
After all, he’s not paying “out of pocket” for these keys, as his email suggests. The city is simply charging the cost of the keys to the generous $8,000 a year expense accounts that are provided to each member of City Council.
By Sandy December 10, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Does this mean my key to Columbia is valuable? Any bids