CA 11

Pombo wants credit for his freugal non-visits with Park Managers

Pombo wants us taxpayers to consider ourselves lucky that he didn't spend $25K for his visits to National Parks where he avoided meetings with Park Managers.

Kennedy said Pombo could have taken airplanes and stayed at expensive hotels, costing taxpayers $25,000 or more. Instead, Kennedy said, Pombo rented the RV and then decided to "take his family along at no additional cost to the taxpayer."

The quotes from Park Managers about Pombo's non-visits just get better and better. I guess the folks who manage these parks are all just partisans with an agenda...

"We had set up camping for him [Pombo] and gone to a lot of work and then he did not show," Pam Livermont, secretary for the park superintendent at Badlands National Park, said Tuesday. "He did not alert any personnel that he wasn't coming, and we never heard another word from him. We were disappointed."

More from think progress...

The chief park naturalist at Sequoia and Kings Canyon, William Tweed, searched his records Friday and couldn’t find a sign of officials meeting with Pombo. “I’m coming up with a blank,” Tweed said in an interview. “I do not personally remember him being here, (and that) is generally something we do recall. We pay attention, because congressmen are significant people for us.”

Joshua Tree National Park spokesman Joe Zarki, whose park was also on Pombo’s visitation list, likewise said Friday that “no one here at this point can say we met with Mr. Pombo.”

posted by brian @ 12:01 PM