Parade Gasoline - how much???

Gus Philpott
Woodstock Advocate
August 20, 2010

In an article on www.mcsdexposed.blogspot.com/ entitled "Bravo to The Book Maker", Zane Seipler reported two expenses for gasoline by the Citizens to Elect Sheriff Nygren campaign committee in 2006. They were to reimburse Keith Nygren, presumably for the purchase of gasoline for vehicles driven in a parade that summer. Other expenses were listed, including other gasoline expenses, but look at these two:

Nygren, Keith 10213 Meadow Lane
Hebron, IL 60034 $40.00
6/30/2006 Expenditure
Citizens to Elect Sheriff Nygren reimbursement for gasoline for parade car
Citizens To Elect Sheriff Nygren

Nygren, Keith 10213 Meadow Lane
Hebron, IL 60034 $45.00
7/21/2006 Expenditure
Citizens to Elect Sheriff Nygren Reimbursement for gasoline for parade car
Citizens To Elect Sheriff Nygren

The first thing that is curious about these two expenses is that they were conveniently in whole dollars ($40.00 and $45.00). How often have you pumped an exact-dollar amount of gas into your chariot?

The second thing that is curious is the amount of each reimbursement. $40.00 (or $45.00) for gasoline to drive in a parade? How far away was the parade? How long was the parade?

A gallon of gasoline that month cost about $3.00-3.15. $40.00 would have bought about 13 gallons of gas. Assuming 20MPG, Keith was generous enough to reimburse someone for 260 miles of driving.

That whole thing is starting to look pretty ridiculous, isn't it?

Obviously, he generously reimbursed someone for parade use of that person's car. But was it a person's car, or was the car donated by Gary Lang Auto Group, as a parade car reportedly recently was?

The issue here is the mislabeling of the expense reimbursement. If it was for "parade use" of a car, then say so. By the way, whose car was it? It certainly wasn't for 13 gallons of gas consumed during parade use!