March 29, 2024
Open LETTER to the Bannock County Board of Commissioners
I’ve read enough about the forensics lab to wonder how it all got started. Pocatello’s previous coroner is my nephew. The topic of a new Forensics lab was already being bantered about that long ago. I asked my nephew how many autopsies were being done in Pocatello? He answered, “Generally 2-3 / month”. We haven’t spoken of it since and I assumed that both the City Council and the County had tossed that idea in the trash, where it belonged.
Every expenditure made with taxpayer’s money surely is looked at from a COST / Benefit view from day one. Correct? I mean, no one would put time and effort into an idea that clearly was infeasible from the beginning.
I’ve been to enough City Council meetings to know that the purchase of copy paper and toilet paper are questioned and scrutinized by the public by the council. Receipts are turned in, double checked and logged. How could we still be entertaining the idea of a multi-million dollar FORENSICS building without a cost/benefit analysis? Or when seeing the official Cost/Benefit is a HUGE negative, continue to be discussing this as anything other than a Boondoggle.
The public isn’t without basic math. If 100 autopsies were done every year and saved $1000 dollars each…it would still not make sense…but for anyone to try to explain away a loss of $3-4000 on each autopsy is ludicrous. Only a Government agency could propose such nonsense with a straight face.
Please share my opinion against this pretentious building with whoever needs to know that the public is watching. This has Boondoggle stamped all over it.
For the Whippersnappers who don’t totally understand the word BOONDOGGLE I’ve attached the definition:
Websters def. BOONDOGGLE:
1. A work activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value.
2. A public project of questionable merit that typically involves political patronage and graft.
Lynda Eggimann
Pocatello
