County Ripped Off under former Sheriff Darren White

Something doesn’t pass the smell test here in Bernalillo County. When it comes right down to it; it stinks! Under the watchful eye of then Sheriff Darren White it appears that the County was ripped off by TruTouch. In a recent Journal article, the NMDOT paid $13,000.00 for each TruTouch machine it purchased. Then Sheriff White paid an astronomical $126,000.00 per machine that stayed on the shelf and were never used. This means that BCSO paid ten times more than what the machines were worth. If you include the development of the machines the County paid twenty-eight times more than DOT.

TruTouch had partnered with the Bernalillo Sheriff’s Department with the cooperation of then Sheriff White in the development of the devices. The total cost of the development and the County purchase of three machines was $1,100,000.00. If you look at the total cost from start to finish, the County via State and Federal funding paid $366,666.00 for each machine by proxy. What a deal, the New Mexico Department of Transportation only paid $13,000.00 for a similar model. It should be noted that the Sheriff’s Department bought model 1800BC and DOT purchased the 1100 model. The President and CEO of TruTouch, Mr. Richard Gill, “did not respond to questions about the difference between those machines.” One of our Eyes suggested that the difference is that DOT’s machines are black and white (model #1100) and BCSO’s machines are blue and white (model 1800BC). This case is so obvious that we had to throw some Eye humor in.

Here is another oddity, the machines purchased by NMDOT all worked fine. DOT reported that one machine was not working properly but the other five purchased are working fine and are in full service. Meanwhile, Current Sheriff Houston has three, $366,666.00 paperweights that are useless thanks to the failure of then Sheriff Darren White who failed to follow through and ensure the tax payer was getting their money’s worth. Sheriff Houston has formally requested that the New Mexico Attorney General Office investigate. TruTouch denies any wrong doing and claims that the problem lied with the Sheriff’s Department.

The Eye On Albuquerque would like to thank the Albuquerque Journal and staff reporter Jeff Proctor for actually reported on a true news story. Be careful Jeff, stories about the truth like this will make the Berry Administration, “Berry upset.”

Source:
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/metro/152314156047newsmetro03-15-11.htm#ixzz1Gg5y9Rzk
Subscribe Now Albuquerque Journal