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To Help US Veterans Charity, George W. Bush Charged $100,000

MEGAN CHUCHMACH and BRIAN ROSS

‎July‎ ‎08‎, ‎2015

 

To Help US Veterans Charity, George W. Bush Charged $100,000 (ABC News)

To Help US Veterans Charity, George W. Bush Charged $100,000

MEGAN CHUCHMACH and BRIAN ROSS

‎July‎ ‎08‎, ‎2015

Former President George W. Bush charged $100,000 to speak at a charity fundraiser for U.S. military veterans severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, and former First Lady Laura Bush collected $50,000 to appear a year earlier, officials of the Texas-based Helping a Hero charity confirmed to ABC News.

The former President was also provided with a private jet to travel to Houston at a cost of $20,000, the officials said.

The charity, which helps to provide specially-adapted homes for veterans who lost limbs and suffered other severe injuries in “the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said the total $170,000 expenditure was justified because the former President and First Lady offered discounted fees and helped raise record amounts in contributions at galas held in 2011 and 2012.

“It was great because he reduced his normal fee of $250,000 down to $100,000,” said Meredith Iler, the former chairman of the charity.

However, a recent report by Politico said the former President’s fees typically ranged between $100,000 and $175,000 during those years.

One of the wounded vets who served on the charity’s board told ABC News he was outraged that his former commander in chief would charge any fee to speak on behalf of men and women he ordered into harm's way.

“For him to be paid to raise money for veterans that were wounded in combat under his orders, I don’t think that’s right,” said former Marine Eddie Wright, who lost both hands in a rocket attack in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004.

“You sent me to war,” added Wright speaking of the former President. “I was doing what you told me to do, gladly for you and our country and I have no regrets. But it’s kind of a slap in the face.”

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Boone County to reject bids, revise animal-control facility plans - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

By Ben Stanley
Rockford Register Star

Posted Jul. 7, 2015 at 9:16 PM

BELVIDERE — Boone County finally has money to replace its antiquated animal-control center, which for years has relied on patch repairs to address a litany of sanitation and infestation problems, but construction will be delayed months as a county committee searches for ways to shave costs.

Two weeks ago, the Boone County Roads and Capital Improvements Committee received bids from three local contractors for the project. Each bid exceeded the county's $800,000 budget — funded entirely through a small property tax increase voters approved in November — by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The bids came as a surprise to committee members, who were given a cost estimate of roughly $800,000 by architect Mark Schmidt in July 2014. Schmidt's estimate influenced the county board's decision to seek that amount in the tax-hike referendum, but several changes were made to building plans before bids were opened in June.

At a special meeting on June 22, the committee voted to recommend the county board accept the low bid from Larson & Larson Builders on the condition that the design could be tweaked to keep costs within budget. However, the committee voted unanimously tonight  to reverse its recommendation after Boone County State's Attorney Michelle Courier warned the county board that making nearly $300,000 in alterations to the building's design after the bid has been accepted could undermine a state statute that regulates the competitive bidding process for county projects.

"The architect has indicated that in order to reduce the cost, he will need to redraw his plans, the same plans on which the project was bid upon," Courier wrote in a letter to the board. "This is a material change from the original project. ... giving the current lowest responsible bidder an unfair advantage."

The county board is expected to reject all three bids at a meeting on July 15. Now the committee must go back to the drawing board and work with Schmidt to draft a much simpler and cheaper design, then re-open bids to local contractors.

"You get so much money to work with, you want to get the best building you can," Schmidt said. "Every time you go to one committee, one group wants one feature, another group wants other bells and whistles and pretty soon it gets bigger ... and then you've got to start shrinking it again. The main goal is, what can we do to get the building built?"

Schmidt estimated late August is the earliest that revised building plans could be released to bidders.

Page 2 of 2 - "I know it's going to get done," Boone County Animal Services Operations Supervisor Roger Tresemer said after the meeting. "It's just, I don't want it ... to get to the point where the integrity of the building is not much different than what we have now." 

Above is from:  Boone County to reject bids, revise animal-control facility plans - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL