Richmond Tea Party Invoices City, Gets Audit Letter Instead

Imagine you're a Tea Party organizer and in your dealings with the city, you follow all of the legal requirements for your rally. You pay for permits, security expenses, sanitation / toilets, etc. Then imagine watching OWS come to town, set up camp, and not have to pay for any of those things while placing a far greater burden on the city. Then, out of fairness, you decide to send the city an invoice for all of the things your group paid for but OWS did not.

Instead of a check, you receive a letter from the city informing you that you're being audited.

Via Right Side News:

Two weeks after the Richmond Tea Party delivered an invoice to Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones for costs incurred for previous rallies; we received a letter from the City of Richmond formally stating that the city is auditing our Tea Party. Coincidence? This audit is an obvious attempt to intimidate and harass us for standing up against the unfair treatment and discrimination against our Tea Party.

First some back story: As reported on the front page of the Richmond Times Dispatch, the Richmond Tea Party delivered an invoice for charges incurred in our previous three Tax Day rallies at Kanawha Plaza because Mayor Jones chose to allow Occupy Richmond protesters to convene in the same park for two weeks.

The Mayor not only allowed the Occupiers to break the law, but he visited them in the city-owned park.  “Jones said that as a ‘child of civil rights’ and protests, he had allowed the group to remain in the park but understands his mayoral responsibility to uphold laws of the city,” reported the Richmond Times Dispatch.

Apparently his mayoral duties included preferential treatment for a group he sympathizes with ideologically at the expense of the taxpayers.

The blog Virginia Right reported that the city provided services such as portable toilets, trash pickup etc. The incomplete invoices obtained from the city totaled $7,000. This was only a portion of the actual costs to taxpayers because the costs of police, helicopter and incarcerations were not included.  Also not accounted for was the 24-hour police protection of the Mayor’s home after the Occupiers moved their camp next door to the Mayor’s house. The Richmond Tea Party, conversely, paid for all services for our rallies, including the police, portable toilets, park fees and permits, amounting to approximately $8,500.

Instead of seeing that the Tea Party was right, the Department of Finance doubled down on stupid and sent the Tea Party a letter notifying them of an audit.

No word on the City sending OWS an invoice.

h/t GWP
City Audit Letter Notification