Commentary

Washington Times

August 28, 1991, Wednesday, Final Edition

Car 54, where are you?

SECTION: Part G; COMMENTARY; EDITORIAL; Pg. G2

If you thought Fairfax County's four-chopper air cavalry division was a good story, get a load of yet another little item, this one uncovered by Thomas Heath of The Washington Post: "More than $1 million worth of brand new Fairfax County police cars are sitting unused on a fenced grassy lot, their batteries disconnected, purchased because officials wrongly believed the big sedans they favor would no longer be manufactured."


Naturally, piecing together a story that lays blame for wasting a million dollars is a tough job, but Mr. Heath seems to have uncovered all the taxpayers need to know.


* At a cost of $3.2 million, the county bought twice as many cars as it needed, which will continue depreciating and deteriorating until the police can use them.


* Like many of the decisions that went into buying the elaborate furnishings of the government center, including $4 million worth of new furniture, this one was made because county officials simply didn't know what they were doing. When county officials found out the Ford Crown Victoria they purchase for police duty would undergo a design change and be unavailable in the near future, they asked Chevrolet what it could offer. County officials claim that Chevrolet said it was downsizing its police model, so they decided to buy twice as many Fords. Chevrolet says the company never had plans to downsize its car, which costs $530 less than the Ford. * "No analysis was done to determine the cost of maintaining the cars or how much money the county would lose by not earning interest on more than $1 million." As the Republican nominee for county supervisor, Tom Davis, noted, "This is just another example of lack of appropriate oversight by elected officials and the delegation to county staff of wide spending discretion." Whether Mr. Davis is including himself in that group we don't know, but his point is well taken. A helicopter fleet costing $4,000 a day. Millions in new furniture costs. Granite flooring and mahogany paneling in the government center. A fitness room with thousands of dollars worth of equipment. A $96,000 television system. A $37,000 granite conference table. Exotic pine trees costing $4,000 apiece. All of which cost more than $100 million (the lion's share of it going to the new government center), a figure that approximates the deficit the county faces next year. With the approval of the Board of Supervisors, Fairfax County's top-level bureaucrats have spent the Moore years building an empire with taxpayer money. Come November, the taxpayers should act accordingly.