Brandon,
You may be right, but there are other possibilities.
The rig might have been confiscated by the Sheriff or by some Federal
agency. (Non-payment of taxes, hauling contraband, pick a crime) If it was
confiscated by a Federal agency, I believe that the Sheriffs department
could have obtained it for a minimal fee. I just attended a GSA sale here in
Minnesota. The sale was held at the State Surplus Center. I noticed that all
of the vehicles that were sold had prices written on them. I asked what they
were for. The prices written on the vehicles were what another government
agency (Sheriffs Department, Municipality, Civil Defense, Department of
Natural Resources, etc.) would have had to have paid for the vehicles, if
they had purchased them from the State Surplus Center. Since no authorized
agencies wanted these vehicles, the GSA was called to send in some
auctioneers to get rid of them at a public auction.
An M36, drop-side, 2 1/2 ton cargo truck in absolutely mint condition sold
for about $2200.00 at auction. The same truck would have cost the local
Sheriff $2000.00 to buy from the Surplus Center. The guy who bought the
truck for $2200.00 can sell it tomorrow for as much as the market will
allow. A government agency that buys the same truck from the Surplus Center
would have to keep it for 3 years before they are allowed to sell it. Maybe
they would get their $2000.00 back...and maybe not. The three year figure is
something that I found out about because I thought that I could get a better
deal on a surplus vehicle if I convinced a buddy of mine at the local city
shops to buy one in the name of the city, and then sell it to me. The only
way that he could legally do that was if I was willing to wait three years
to take possession of the vehicle. Thanks, but I guess that I'll just bid
for one, like everybody else has to.
I'm not saying that irregularities, improprieties, and down-right thievery
doesn't happen when government property gets transferred from one agency to
another. I don't think that you can just automatically assume that it does.
Just because the Sheriffs Department had enough pride to paint their name on
the side of the tractor doesn't necessarily mean that they are dishonest. I
would hope that the citizens of the county would be smart enough to figure
it out, if the local Sheriff was running a military surplus store as a side
business.
My .02 worth.
John
-----Original Message-----
From: Brandon K. [mailto:c322348@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2001 9:45 AM
To: mil-veh@mil-veh.org
Subject: Re: [MV] A few more pictures
This is an easy one. Your taxes paid for a brand new
rig to haul off DRMO surplus. The police department
collects the surplus to sell later. Either the money
ends up in the department budget, or the stuff turns
up missing one day and can be found for sale at the
local surplus store (clothing and web gear).
This is a big scam in Kalifornia. It's hard to get any
good equipment out of the DRMO system anymore. A
friend of mine is curator of a large registered
non-profit museum, and as such, the museum can draw
items from the surplus system...but only after law
enforcement picks over it first. He can't even get a
used tail light bulb for a HMMWV because anyone with a
badge can walk in and take parts. He's even caught law
enforcement stealing parts off of items he has been
awarded.
Law enforcement has new ways of getting budget now. If
they aren't confiscating cars from pot smokers,
they're liberating Deuce-and-a-halfs from DRMO.
Brandon
--- Wayne Harris <papercu@hotmail.com> wrote:
> HiO List I was back at the DRMO today and a truck
> from Lake County
> Sheriff[Florida] was loading up. Look under "Really
> Cool Police Truck" it
> was a nice truck and trailer but I would like to
> know how they justify the
> cost to operate that rig and just how many
> deuces[and other things] are they
> hauling off.:-))
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 05 2001 - 00:40:37 PDT