The News Herald has done a lot of digging to find out how much the LCHA has spent on "Travel" over the last year or so. I want to commend the News Herald for their investigative reporting.

But here's where I'm going with the story. In their usual operation, a week after the story ran about the "Travel" expenditures of the LCHA, the editor followed up with an editorial about the LCHA and the Loudon Housing Authority. The crux of the editorial was a complaint of how much the paper was charged for copies of documents they had requested from the the Loudon Office.

The News Herald had asked for copies of records spanning about fifteen months, time sheets and other documents, 194 documents in all. The Loudon Director told them the cost would be $325.00. That according to the Herald was outrageous.

Flashback, just a few years ago, all be it under different management, then News Herald editor threatened to sue the Loudon County Election Commission because they had decided not to run their election advertisements in the News Herald due to the excessive costs. In previous years, the News Herald had charged more than six thousand dollars for various, required election ads. The one run of a sample ballot cost the county $858.00. I doubt seriously ad costs have gone down since then.

It just strikes me odd that a paper that charges such excessive rates for their ads would really complain about a bill for $325.00. This has got to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. I guess turn about is fair play.  

Hopefully, this is not just a political thing the News Herald is doing but is the beginning of a new phase for the Herald and they are going to start doing more investigative reporting and they couldn't have started in a better place. I would suggest that they take the same in depth look at all our local governments spending on "Travel." They're a regular pot of gold.