“The project includes updating the utility service with backup emergency dual natural gas and propane. Adds a full building services generator to the facility for power, should normal utility power fail.”
Democrat Governor Tina Kotek, who previously promised to cut the state’s use of natural gas, is having a dual natural gas and propane backup generator installed at Mahonia Hall, the official residence of the Oregon governor.
According to the official bid, “The project includes updating the utility service with backup emergency dual natural gas and propane. Adds a full building services generator to the facility for power, should normal utility power fail.”
https://rumble.com/embed/v28ho9k/?pub=2n05b
The City of Salem permit describes the project as “Adding piping from existing NG (natural gas) Utilities to new generator.”
The project also includes adding a 500-gallon propane tank and a new outdoor concrete pad which will be covered with a new pergola structure.
The project has a price tag of $308,934, which talk radio host Lars Larson told The Post Millennial, is at least four times what the project should reasonably cost based on the contractors he consulted.
Larson, who first revealed the massive expenditure, called it, “Gas for me and not for thee.”
During the Oregon Democrat’s campaign for governor, she stressed the importance of making it easier for Oregonians to buy and charge electric vehicles and claimed she would focus on reducing the use of natural gas.
Kotek has been under fire recently for not ending the state’s practice of using taxpayer funds to pay the travel expenses of state workers who decided to work remotely.
Republican state Sen. Tim Knopp has sponsored Legislative Concept 3697, a bill that would require state employees who live full time in other states to pay their own travel costs when they return to Oregon on state business.
According to data provided by the Oregon Department of Administrative Services, at least 500 of the state’s 45,000 employees live and work far from Salem, sometimes thousands of miles away.
The agency’s list contains 494 employees but excludes workers at the Oregon Lottery, the State Treasury, the Secretary of State’s Office or the Department of Justice, which are classified as “full-time remote,” which according to the Willamette Week means they have received “permission to live and work in another state and are now expected to work in Oregon fewer than eight days a year.”
The list included 29 employees in Texas and 12 in Florida, both states with no income taxes. There are even four in Hawaii.
Knopp told the outlet, “I was outraged at the unfair policy and that taxpayers were footing the bill for out of state employees to be flown back into Oregon. The entire state senate has agreed with me and are sponsoring the bill.”
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