Monday, August 26th, 2013,
Wilco Hess Gas station located up in the
Gloucester Courthouse area,
George Washington Memorial Highway, yet another Gloucester County employee is seen using a government
vehicle for personal use.
9:05 AM Gloucester County vehicle number 11, Building Inspectors. He was not there to inspect the building. He was there on personal business to inspect food, buy some, and took it back to this vehicle and started eating, is what we have been informed.
In his left hand we have been told is the sandwich he bought. He started eating this in the truck. Is this meals on wheels?
Based on the pictures sent to us, this is the best we could get zooming in on the vehicle. The person who sent us the pictures sent us all the details as well. You can barely make out the Gloucester emblem and that it is truck number 11 here, but you can still make it out.
Just more gross negligence from our Gloucester County officials and waste of your tax dollars. But let's be fair for a moment. We are not against anyone being able to eat. However, Gloucester County as well as the state and the
federal government have rules against personal use of government vehicles. Your employer is most likely not giving you a vehicle to run out in and get food while on the clock everyday, using their gas, expenditures, upkeep, insurance and liability among other issues. And besides, it's your tax dollars being spent by these people who keep telling you why they have to raise taxes. (To pay for this?)
It's like this, if you get a phone call and you have to get somewhere fast, you may be required to speed to get there. Your speeding does not cause an accident or any incident other than you get pulled over and get a ticket. Are you going to tell the judge that your speeding didn't cause any harm? (That has been used as a very successful defense in the past. You demand the state to show harm for your actions. The state is then required to come up with a witness against you, which it can not do. This defense no longer works in most areas).
You are required to follow the laws the same as everyone else. Therefore, the local
county government is equally required to follow it's own laws. Again, it is local, state and federal law that government vehicle can not be used for personal use. Stopping at
Hardee's Hess,
McDonald's or anywhere else to get a bite to eat while working on the clock, using a government vehicle is personal use of a government vehicle.
What is the cost to the taxpayer each year for all of this? At the moment, unknown but we bet everyone would be shocked at what the real costs are. Below is the use of vehicles even by the
Board of Supervisors. Note their own policies.
100.2 Use of Vehicles for Out-of-Town Travel
Members of the Board of Supervisors may use a County vehicle or their personal vehicle for necessary travel. If a
member of the Board uses a personal vehicle, then the Board member will be reimbursed for work-related mileage at the mileage rate established by the County Administrator.
A County vehicle may not be used when combining work related travel and personal travel. The use of a County vehicle is regulated by any County vehicle policy.
And of course the famous county employee employment policy.
13-27 Use of county vehicles:
Personal use of county vehicles is prohibited. (Not the entire text, but the rest has no bearing on this issue and does not alter the meaning in anyway).
If government has no issues getting into your business and telling you what you can and can not do, how you have to do things and when, then they need to be held to higher standards. They must set examples. What examples do we continue to see over and over and over again from Gloucester County Officials? No control over their employees, no regard for policies and no regard for how your tax dollars are wasted. The county government employees are making a statement, if they can not go to Hardee's then they will just go somewhere else and to hell with policy.
Is this a message to the citizenry?
