Possibly armed with a state-issued credit card.
Really now, you cannot get more low rent than our Rocky Mount potentate spending $109,000 in public money to send his wife on junkets to France and Russia. As was the case for the Easleys’ “business recruiting” trip to Italy, Mary Easley required a chauffeured Mercedes-Benz to be on-call. Cost taxpayers for car: More than $27,000 the N&O reports.
Little touches like these explode the notion that there was remotely any state-purpose in $280,000 worth of European trips. They were lavish junkets, plain and simple. Mike Easley should reimburse the state from his campaign warchest, which at the end of the last reporting period had over $600,000 in it. Fat chance.
The only clips of Italian-press coverage of the Easleys’ grand state visit that the governor’s office has yet produced is a single 300-word travel mag blurb that mentions Dirty Dancing and the “still well-known” TV series Dawson’s Creek and Matlock. Ah yes, the coveted Italian Matlock demographic.
These people think we are fools.
Update: Chad Adams thankfully blows up the notion that the trips could remotely “pay for themselves” in tourism. All we need is $40m. in Euro-travel as a result of the trips. Oh, and the notion that some museum showing might recoup the money: Something will be in N.C. state museums. You cannot just assume that all of money spent during a given exhibit is a result of that exhibit.
