Nevada Governor to Bill Fossett Widow For Search

sonchat writes with news that Nevada's "Gov. Jim Gibbons intends to bill the widow of missing multimillionaire adventurer Steve Fossett for $687,000 the state spent in searching for the famed aviator last fall, a spokesman said." Though in some places charging for the cost of a search effort is routine, apparently in Nevada it is not.

Budget smudget

[drquoz]

This is just plain awful. I'm sure she's going through enough without this added on top of everything. Shouldn't be charging anybody, especially the widow.

Re:Though is some places?

[SatanicPuppy]

I'd consider that more of a grey area. Those people are paid specifically for traffic enforcement, cleanup, maintenance, etc, and the people who are in the accidents are liable for damages (through their insurance), and are on the road where they are supposed to be.

In cases like this where someone gets themselves lost, it's a lot less clear-cut. The state usually puts forth a ton of effort to find these people, and often they end up eating thousands of dollars of rescue costs racked up by some joker who didn't even take the most basic precautions.

This particular situation annoys me because he didn't tell anyone specifically where he was going, didn't have a radio beacon, didn't seem to have a radio, or didn't feel the need to use it when he got into trouble. That's irresponsible, but he can be assumed to have had a pretty good idea of what he was doing, and obviously was capable and experienced.

The ones that really jerk my chain are the people who have zero competence and zero experience who are constantly getting stuck on mountains, lost in national parks, stranded in the ocean, etc, etc, etc. They need to be held accountable for their lack of planning.

Re:I don't care if he was rich, this is an outrage

[lgw]

What's next, getting a bill from the police for investigating a crime done against you?

Funny you should mention that: back when I used to delvier pizza for a living, I would get robbed and/or assaulted on a somewhat regular basis. On one occasion, I returned to the store still bleeding to encounter a police officer leaving the store with his free pizza. He called me and my manager idiots for delivering to that neighborhood, and wrote me a ticket for expired license plates. I got the bill, but the investigation: not so much.

You can imagine my opinion on the police.

Re:Budget smudget

[Quattro Vezina]

The government should never charge for any service via any methods other than taxation and voluntary donation.

If the government cannot afford to provide a service without sending a bill, they should not offer the service at all.

Only private organizations should be allowed to bill people.