Thursday, August 17, 2006

Who should foot the $66,000 bill for the princess's visit?

KVA L.--

Last month, the princess of Thailand made a visit to Eugene and the Eugene police department was tasked with providing 4-5 officers to protect her during her four-day visit. This added up to over a thousand hours of overtime costing the Eugene Police Department more than nearly most politicians visits to a sum of $66,000 ($16,500 per day) which will come out of the department's general fund.
" You're working people 24 hours a day, for 4 or 5 days and that gets pretty expensive," Captain Chuck Tilby of the Eugene Police Department explained "

3 comments:

jeff said...

But you should be honored that they blessed your simple city with such an important visit...

I dunno - seems like this happens to a certain extent when the President drops by too.

Anonymous said...

Why in the world did she need 24 hour protection? As a memeber of a royal family, she should have provided her own body guard. As for paying the tab....if she was invited by the city, they should pay, if she was invited by the University, they should pay and if she came on her own, uninvited, she should pay. Who paid for the plane ticket and hotel?

Robin said...

The same issue was brought up about the estimated $200,000 cost to Portland for Bush's visit on April 20, 2003. [source - PortlandMercury]