Government workers in one county in Tennessee want to build themselves a $100,000-plus gym as a Christmas present. The workout facility is pending a county commissioner vote, but if it passes it is expected to open by December and include exercise and nutrition classes for out-of-shape officials. “I’ve been in corporate America my entire adult life,” County Commissioner Steve Basar, an advocate for the gym, told Watchdog.org. “Most corporate headquarters in the country have some kind of fitness facility for their employees. We don’t have that. I see this as a win/win.”
The full cost of the proposed Shelby Country facility is unknown, but one county commissioner indicated that only projects in excess of $100,000 require approval — so who knows how much this pork project will end up costing taxpayers? For their part, many citizens are outraged and have written irate letters to their county commissioners. What makes this unnecessary expenditure all the worse is that it is coming at the same time pleas for funds from district attorneys at the nearby Criminal Justice Complex go unanswered. Witnesses scheduled to testify in court, for example, have no dedicated space to wait before their turn at trial. So they often have to stand around next to the very violent criminals they will be trying to help put away.
But instead of building a needed waiting room, many officials want to build themselves a weight room. They won’t lift a finger to help out taxpaying witnesses trying to do their civic duty, but they will use those same citizens’ money to lift weights in a fancy fitness center. “You are dealing with the taxpayers’ money — this isn’t money that we earned,” Commissioner Heidi Shafer, who is against the fitness center, told Watchdog.org. “This is money we take by force of law. It needs to be handled more frugally and only for the specific needs of taxpayers.”
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